Here is a jazzy little number from Lurch, our ERN Correspondent "in the field".

Now, for the most part, The Evil Robot Acolytes (Those sycophantic and craven souls who nurture the Evil Robots into being) have to labor hard and hot hours in their various dungeon-like research laboratories, damp creepy garage spaces, sullen and ill fated industrial parks, etc., to bring forth the technotronic misfortunes that will one day spell our collective doom. There is a trend however which forebodes an even darker day, a darker day to which Evil Robot Acolytes look forward, like a arch-mechanical sort of...Anti-Christmas.

This "Dark Festivus" of the not too distant future will come about when that milestone of horror, the day when Evil Robots can produce and replicate themselves without the aid of humankind, and finally darken the skies above us, and poison the sweet waters below with the bitter effulgence of their self-production.

If you guessed that the hard won tax dollar chickens that you have provided (assuming you have not already been displaced in the flagging human workforce by an Evil Robot) to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - ironically, the guys who, largely, in their prior incarnation, brought you The Internet itself) might somehow be coming home to roost, fitfully, as Evil Robots; rest assured, you are correct. Along with the pluck, might, and considerable intelligence, of the United States Navy (see aforementioned "chicken-y" tax dollars) they will see that dark celebration realized! One way, or another...

"Whenever the military rolls out a new robot program, folks like to joke about SkyNet or the Rise of the Machines. But this time, the military really is starting to venture into robot-apocalypse territory: swarms of little semi-autonomous machines that can team up to manufacture complex objects (including, presumably, more robots).

That’s right, the only thing scarier than a swarm of intelligent military mini robots is a swarm of intelligent military mini robots in control of the means of production. And your Navy is hard at work on making it a reality.

The U.S. Navy recently issued a proposal for aspiring mad scientists to build it “a coordinated and distributed swarm of micro-robots” capable of manufacturing “novel materials and structures.” "

Full Story @ WIRED - Danger Room [ ERN -Hats off to "Ye Olde Danger Roome" for being hip, by the way. Resist! ]