Best quote ever:

"We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission," stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO

Then who's mission is it?

Yeah, I'd like to see them get a cadaver and prove that their robots don't feast on the dead. I don't trust a corporation farther than I can throw it. And I can only throw a dead body about four feet.

This is pretty much the best press release I've ever seen in my life.

On a much less apocalyptic note, there is some great lawnbot potential here. A robot that cuts your grass and eats it for fuel sounds pretty good to me.

You mean like a goat, that also gives you milk and love?

Don't forget the distinctive odor that allows you to tell if you have arrived near that love, even in complete darkness. Of course if the new biomass engine does not lack this feature it probably ruins it for any covert use.

Chickens are better for that purposes, since their excrements are some of the best fertilizer around. They also smell better than the goat.

they have an annoying tendancy to destroy/tear up the grass though.

Goat won't eat the grass uniformly. So you won't have a nice looking lawn. + unless you have a mansion with a huge lawn the goat will starve after a few months.

Apparently you can rent goats for this purpose

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/mowing-with-goats.htm...

You'll want to leave the grass-clippings in the lawn for fertilisation. Sure, you could add fertilizers, but then why not just give the lawn bot a place to plug-in (like a Roomba) instead? It's easier and I'm pretty sure it's cheaper, also.

Also, I'm not sure the world is ready for autonomous robots with blades. Imagine it foraging onto the neighbouring lawn, prompting the interest of a 4-year old... ugh.

I note that iRobot, Boston Dynamics and other robotics firms have not yet denied that their robots feed on the dead.

What are they hiding?

How much energy can a robot extract from biomass? I remember hearing about a similar technology a few years back, but the process didn't recover the energy used to gather it.

How bout SlugBot, that runs on the garden slugs it catches? (from Wired 2001):

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2001/10/4715...

Wow. I hadn't seen that before... That is actually quite scary!

Plants are a gateway biomass. One minute you're snacking on some grass clippings, then before you know it you're eating whole families alive.

Well, it worked in the Matrix.