bots

LAS VEGAS--LG Electronics is showing off its Smart Hom-Bot robot vacuum this week at CES 2011, part of its Thinq smart home appliance lineup.

With iRobot introducing an upgraded series of its dominant Roomba vac-bots at CES, the onus was on the Korean electronics giant to distinguish its product.

The Smart Hom-Bot, weighing about 7.7 pounds and standing 3.5 inches tall, can clean hardwood floors and lightweight carpets. Like Roomba, it also has edge-detect sensors so it doesn't plunge over drop-offs.

But unlike Roomba, it cleans by mapping out the room with a ultrasonic and infrared sensors … Read more

Cybercriminals are likely to find more jobs next year, one of five top trends forecast by security vendor Fortinet.

In an ironic twist in the job market, more positions will open up for developers who can write customized malware packers, people who can break CAPTCHA codes, and distributors who can spread malicious code, according to Fortinet.

And though cybercrooks have typically deployed their own botnets themselves, Fortinet believes this job will increasingly be farmed out to middlemen, citing the Alureon and Hiloti botnets as two examples of malware distributed this way. Money mules responsible for wiring funds and cashing checks … Read more

No massage could ever come close to those given by Eleanor, the miracle worker who is CNET's in-house masseuse (we do have to pay for her time, but rates are good). Sometimes, however, even she needs a day off, and for those sad occasions, we're thinking CNET might want to invest in a few WheeMe massage robots.

Yes, they wash our hair and give us sponge baths, and now robots are climbing atop our backs to massage our aching muscles, too.

Employing tilt sensor technology, the palm-size bot from Israel's DreamBots automatically steers itself around at 4.5 centimeters per second, gently caressing your muscles with "patented fingerettes" that make it look like the love child of a toy car and a rubber caterpillar.

DreamBots points out that WheeMe works best on horizontal surfaces such as the back or stomach (although one or two photos on the DreamBots site hint at more provocative targets). The company promises the robot won't fall off or lose its grip as it silently maneuvers around your achy-breaky body. … Read more

Being that I'm a famous geek-culture Internet celebrity, people send me gifts all the time. Why, just today I walked out of my apartment to find an eye patch, chopsticks, a John Elway coffee mug, and a power supply for a PowerBook 1400cs. Thank you, readers, for your kind gifts!

But not everyone can be a well-known blogger. Take, for example, Paul Hunkin, a Ph.D. student in New Zealand. He set up an Internet bot to randomly buy low-priced stuff, with free shipping, from an online auction site. Paul, you see, likes to get packages. This way, he … Read more

Mavizon Technologies just introduced AutoBot, a smartphone application that allows drivers to control several car functions with the push of a few buttons.

The new app will be available in 2012, but you don't need a brand-new car to use it. According to Amy Gilroy at CEOutlook, it will work in all vehicles with an OBD-ll port (1996 or later). Drivers can sync information with a their home computer using a cloud-based account.

AutoBot functions will allow the driver to lock and unlock doors, control window settings, start the car, and even locate the car if it gets stolen.… Read more

Panda Security has launched its latest product, this one geared specifically for Mac users.

The security firm today unveiled Panda Antivirus for the Mac, designed to defend Mac OS and OS X users against viruses, spyware, adware, and other forms of malware. In addition to scanning e-mail and local files on the Mac, the new software will prevent Mac users from unknowingly sending malware-infected documents to friends and colleagues running Windows or Linux, Panda said.

Moving beyond the computer, the software will also scan iPhones, iPads, and iPods to make sure those portable gadgets aren't delivering malware to other … Read more

The United States is now the top source of spam, accounting for almost 19 percent of all junk e-mail sent throughout the world, according to a new report out today from Sophos.

The security firm's "Dirty Dozen" report highlighted the top 12 countries responsible for the world's supply of spam during the third quarter. With the United States generating almost 2.5 times more spam than second-place India, the country now accounts for almost one in five junk messages. The United States' 18.6 percent share of all global spam also showed a significant jump from … Read more

More than 2 million PCs in the U.S., or 5.2 out of every 1,000, were recruited into botnets during the second quarter of 2010, according to a Microsoft report released yesterday.

The company's ninth and latest Security Intelligence Report tracked the spread of botnets and malware infections detected and removed throughout the world during the first and second quarters of the year. The sheer number of infected PCs found and cleaned up by Microsoft in the U.S. in the second quarter was the highest in the world. But the percentage of infected PCs was greater … Read more

One good robot deserves another. That's why Japan's robot toilets would love a British bot that poops with clockwork regularity.

Ioannis Ieropoulos and other researchers at Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the U.K. have created a marvel of modern science--a robot that can feed on biomass and excrete waste. The EcoBot III has an artificial gut that allows it to survive on fluid food and water for seven days without human intervention.

The robot is powered by 48 small microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and moves along a steel track between sources of liquid food and water (see time-lapse … Read more