This Week in the Future, October 12-16, 2009

It’s that time again–our illustrated roundup of the future this week. Robots were in the news quite a bit (meaning it was a good week): robots made of shapeless goo, robots that eat biomaterials for energy and robots that could have saved soldiers’ lives in Iraq.

This week’s stories:

• An Army commander speaks out, claiming that 122 of the 155 soldiers who died during his time in Iraq could have been avoided if the Army put robots to better use in the service
• iRobot showed off their creepy Chembot, made of an amorphous blob that can squeeze through cracks in pursuit of a target
• All you need to know about EATR, Darpa’s infamous biomass-eating robot
• And in non-robotic news (shocking, I know), a new material makes walls and surfaces un-crawlable by cockroaches and other insects
• And finally, researchers were able to identify the presence of humans up to three feet through walls by using off-the-shelf wi-fi equipment

Hope everyone had a good week. Until next time!

See our past weekly illustrated roundups here.