Power couple

By Nick O'Malley
Updated September 10 2014 - 10:09am, first published August 30 2014 - 3:00am
Electric dreams: Scientist Rodney Brooks with "Baxter". Photo: David Yellen
Electric dreams: Scientist Rodney Brooks with "Baxter". Photo: David Yellen

Four hours after American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, iRobot - a small robotics firm based in Bedford, Massachusetts - received a call from the US military's secretive advanced technology program, known as DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Staff at iRobot immediately broke into teams to make last-minute modifications to four robots, packed a van and headed south. By midnight they were at Ground Zero in Manhattan, known then only as "the pile".

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