Shape-Shifting Robot Tetrahedron for Nanotech Swarms via Engadget
It seems that NASA is coming up with some rather odd, but pretty cool concepts lately. First, they're building a tetrahedon-based robot which, by retracting and expanding it's sides, will be able to move. Then, they plan on building these things as nanobots. And as if this wasn't enough to get your mojo working, the plan is to get these nanobots to co-operate in swarms (NASA call them "autonomous nanotech swarms", and use "ANTS" as an acronym, but I object. Swarms of robots pretty much *have* to be at least partially autonomous. If they have to ask permission of someone every time they reform/combine/act as a collection, it'd be a pretty useless swarm. Or an army, not a swarm.) But still, it's pretty amazing to read about "nanotech swarms" being mentioned in the first place.