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In Hollywood, robots have come in many shapes and sizes. There’s the classic, corrugated-tubing-limbed Robot from the television series Lost In Space (1965); the clunky C-3PO and cute R2-D2, the Star Wars (1977) duo; the tough Terminator from The Terminator (1984) played by Arnold Schwarzenegger; the mischievous Johnny 5 from Short Circuit (1986); the kind-hearted, ill-fated Sonny in I, Robot (2004); and WALL-E (2008), the endearing trash-collecting robot. Robot-reality, however, still lags behind robot-fiction by quite a bit. Even Elon Musk’s October 2022 debut of Optimus—a distinctly masculine humanoid-frame robot prototype built by Tesla that, for the first time, wobbled along sans cables—failed to wow critics, who compared it to decades-old Japanese robotics and noted that it lacked any differentiating capabilities.  And yet, automatons—self-propelled machines—are not new. More than two millennia ago, Archytas, an inventor from ancient Greece, built a pulley-activated wooden dove, capable of flapping its wings and flying a very short distance (a puff of air triggered a counterweight that set the bird in motion).  » Read More

A man who killed three teenage boys in Riverside County after they played a doorbell-ringing prank on him in 2020 was sentenced to life in prison on Friday. Anurag Chandra, 45, from Corona, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole after he was convicted by a jury in April of three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. The deadly crash happened on Jan. 19, 2020, as six teenage boys were having a sleepover that night. One of the boys was given a dare to approach Chandra’s home on Modjeska Summit Road. After ringing Chandra’s doorbell, the teens quickly drove away in a 2002 Toyota Prius. Chandra chased down the six teens in his 2019 Infiniti Q50 and eventually caught up with them on Temescal Canyon Road near Squaw Mountain Road. Chandra rear-ended and sideswiped their vehicle until they were forced off the road before slamming into a tree. Chandra had reached speeds of 99 miles per hour at the time,  » Read More

Thomas Monyai has been sentenced to life in prison in the Tembisa Magistrate's Court. Google© Streetview/Google Maps/ taken 2022 A Gauteng man who lured a woman through a fake Facebook profile and then raped her, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.The rape occurred when the woman went to Tembisa for a job interview.He tied her hands, blindfolded her, and raped her several times before taking her cellphone and bag. A Gauteng man who created a fake profile on Facebook and used it to lure his rape victim, has been jailed for life.The Tembisa Magistrate's Court sentenced Thomas Monyai, 33, to life imprisonment for rape, 15 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances and five years for kidnapping."The complainant and Monyai met on Facebook and started dating. The accused introduced himself to the complainant as Tumelo through a fake profile he created to lure her. A few months after the relationship started, the complainant was invited to a job interview at Kempton Park.  » Read More

Local NewsSelf-proclaimed ‘attorney’ claims he was swimming nude for medical reasons, police sayClaude Bazo (MCSO)KEY WEST, Fla. – Police arrested a 45-year-old Key West man Wednesday evening after they said he stripped nude in the water at a beach and tried to get two young girls to swim with him — and later tried to use a medical condition as an excuse for bathing in the buff.According to an arrest report from the Key West Police Department, the girls told officers that they were playing in the water on a paddleboard attached to the pier at Higgs Beach when Claude Michael Bazo approached, took off his red shorts and began swimming naked.The girls told police that Bazo tried “multiple times” to get the girls, described as “obviously pre-pubescent (and) wearing two-piece bikinis,” to “come swim with him” while he was naked in the water.Officer Joshua Hesse wrote in the report that the girls were clearly traumatized as they recounted what happened, as they were “visibly shaking,  » Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials have approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, which will let American women and girls buy ...  » Read More

SINGAPORE - Facebook and Instagram users in Singapore can now pay to have the coveted blue check on their accounts if they can provide government ID for verification and meet several criteria. The verification badge was previously available only to public figures. Now, those who subscribe to Meta Verified – a paid service that Meta first launched in Australia and New Zealand in February – can also apply for the blue tick if they are at least 18 years old, and have met minimum activity requirements. Meta’s Asia-Pacific vice-president Dan Neary said on Facebook on Thursday that Meta Verified is now available in more than 30 Asia-Pacific markets, including Singapore. “(I am) very excited to see how creators in Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and other markets in the region will leverage this to build their communities on Instagram, Facebook and now Threads,” Mr Neary said. Meta has said that the paid subscription service is primarily targeted at content creators who want to expand their presence on the platforms.  » Read More

Facebook community group members are being urged to share a photo of a “missing girl” in a bid to reunite her with her family. But the post is a scam. The pictured girl is not missing. The intention of those behind the post is to prompt people to share it, before it is then altered to display a real estate advertisement with suspicious links. The post (archived here) has been shared on numerous community pages in the UK, US, Australia and elsewhere (examples here, here, here and here). The image features a girl with her two dogs.  The post claims that a granddaughter is missing, but the photo has been stolen from a news report.  “Help!!! MISSING Child!! #Falkirk My grand daughter Sofia only 5years old went out on her bike earlier today and she still hasn’t returned. She doesn’t know where she’s going, new surroundings.There is a silver alert activated on her.  » Read More

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Manny Coto, the Cuban-born writer and producer who received an Emmy for his work on 24 and spent four seasons on American Horror Story and two more on American Horror Stories, has died. He was 62. Coto, whose childhood love of Star Trek and Super-8 moviemaking led to a 40-year career in film and television, died Sunday at his home in Pasadena after a 13-month battle with pancreatic cancer, a family spokesperson announced. Coto also worked on the final two seasons of UPN’s Star Trek: Enterprise (2003-05) and on the final three seasons of Showtime’s Dexter (2010-13). Taking the reins on the former as showrunner in season four, he was called an unsung hero, creating a run of episodes that returned classic elements to his beloved franchise. His “love of Star Trek permeated his life and his worldview,” his family noted. “In addition to being well-known for a spot-on William Shatner impression that left his writing staffs in stitches,  » Read More

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon holds up a copy of the Financial Times while speaking to members of the media outside US District Court House as his trial for contempt of Congress continues, in Washington, DC, on July 20, 2022.Stefani Reynolds | AFP | Getty ImagesA judge ordered former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon to pay a New York law firm $480,487 in unpaid legal bills.And that amount could grow.Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arlene Bluth also awarded the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron fees it incurred from having to sue Bannon to collect what it was owed for work performed from November 2020 through November 2022.Bluth's six-page decision brushed aside Bannon's arguments against the bill, which suggested Davidoff Hutcher's retainer was not entitled to charge for work related to four different legal cases, and that he never "personally received" the firms' bills or paid their invoices himself.The judge noted that Davidoff Hutcher had been paid $375,000 for work for Bannon before he stopped paying the firm.  » Read More