It won’t be long now before robots become commonplace on the battlefield. Take the iRobot Ember for instance – this new microbot was specially developed for military applications, where it is in essence a miniaturized PackBot that boasts the full array of iRobot’s flipper technology, letting it right itself and climb over obstacles as and when required. The whole idea of the iRobot Ember is to set up an ad-hoc network of hotspots even in hostile territory while being discreet at it. Hopefully iRobot is able to meet the military’s target price of $100 a pop if these are ever going to be of service to our country.