The fly’s a spy

The Economist
JUST below a half-opened garage door a tiny device can be seen at the feet of someone lurking in the shadows. It looks like a blue dragonfly. Then its miniature wings begin to flap as it slips under the door and darts along the street. After rising through the air it stops to hover [...]

Rise of the machines

The Economist
EVER since Karol Capek, a Czech playwright, used the term in the early 1920s to describe artificial people, robots have usually appeared in popular culture with human characteristics and made by big companies. There was the Model B-9 Environmental Control Robot in “Lost in Space”; Rosie, the robot maid in “The Jetsons”; C-3PO in [...]