Some good links from Kurzweilai.net Bionic hand controlled by the mind
A highly functional bionic hand which was invented by a Scottish NHS worker has gone on the market. The thumb and fingers can move and grip just like a human hand and are controlled by the patient's mind and muscles.
Robot insect takes off for the first time
A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot's movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals.
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) - The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It's outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles. The Reaper is loaded, but there's no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.
The arrival of these outsized U.S. "hunter-killer" drones, in aviation history's first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.
Much of what we have been seeing in science-fiction movies over the last 50 years and have dismissed as fantasy, will actually come true in the next 20 to 30 years, included automated, robotic war and the merging of man and machine.