Much of our technology including green technology is becoming more and more intelligent.  Washing machines can sense the size of a load of laundry and adjust water levels accordingly.  Car transmissions can sense the need for changes and adjust quicker than their drivers can improving gas mileage.  As our technology gets more intricate and intelligent, scientists are beginning to worry.

Advances in technology are generally good for the human race. They help keep us alive longer, make our lives more fulfilling, and generally make the world a much more entertaining place to live. Which is all well and good while we’re in control. The problem is with the continuing evolution of AI (Artificial Intelligence) we may not always be in control.

Toyota has tested a wheelchair that can be partially controlled through thought alone, with no need for body movement. It’s a way of using a new technology which drastically reduces the time it takes for a machine to read human brain waves.

A pair of NASA astronauts performed delicate repairs to an ailing Hubble Space Telescope in a mission that was judged a success despite a number problems with Hubble’s hardware.

Boeing has breathed new life into an old project by adding some new technology and thinking to the mix and voilà, the unmanned Phantom Ray is born, based on the company’s X-45 experimental aircraft.

Shades of the Beatles “Yellow Submarine”.  In this case, no one lives on this  yellow submarine.  This sub is robotic and will be used to study the causes of the accelerated melting of the Pine Island Glacier in the Antarctic.

NASA has announced that the next generation Mars mission, originally planned for 2009, has been delayed for at least two years. A series of technical problems and cost overruns will force a delay until the year 2011, and will result in at least $400 million in added costs, the space agency said at a briefing at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. The delay could possibly result in some layoffs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has stopped sending signals back to Earth after five months. Scientists believe it has likely frozen to the robot equivalent of death.

Honda has developed and introduced a cybernetic device which is used to help support body weight and reduce stress on the legs and knees. Although the bulk of Honda’s presentation of the device was aimed at assisting factory workers, there are obvious implications for others among the rapidly aging population of our planet. The mechanism is specifically designed support the weight of the body, reduce stress on the knees, help getting up steps, and staying in crouching positions.

A German-made robot has come just short of reaching the acknowledged standard for true artificial intelligence. The machine fooled three out of 12 judges in an annual competition; one more fooled judge would have taken it to the necessary threshold.

All of those images of robots that we have amassed from scifi pictures and TV series may have it all wrong.  Robots won’t be covered in metal, but in a rubberized e-skin developed by researchers at Japan’s Tokyo University.

Sometimes life imitates Art and sometimes it imitates Science Fiction.  This is one of those later times.  Anyone familiar with Battle Star Galactica knows that the Cylons are self replicating robots.  Now an open source group has created a robot machine that recreates itself and anything else for which you can find blue prints.

Anyone who has seen Blade Runner, Aeon Flux, or Stargate Atlantis has seen a sci-fi version of future cities.  Just as we are seeing environmentally-inspired innovations in cars, and buildings, new concepts for future cities are popping up as well.

Remember HAL?  He was the artificial intelligence computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Well, this HAL won’t be shoving people out of any airlocks but it does read minds, sort of.

Armed robots called MAARS (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System) and hi-tech soldier gear called "Land Warrior" are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan in an effort to decrease the allied casualties and increase allied effectiveness.

The Nintendo Wii and the Apple iPhone are two of the most popular gadgets on the market right now. But their uses go beyond mere entertainment, and the technology in both devices has now been adapted to be used by the US military.

New start up company Willow Creek is using an Open Source philosophy to shorten delivery time of its robots. The company has given the prototype robots an Open Source operating system and has shipped them to various universities and labs for testing and improvement. By making the operating system open source, the company hopes to receive necessary feedback on improvements that will eliminate years of costly lab testing.