Yeehaw! Swagbot is the world's finest robot cowboy (Tomorrow Daily 393)

(MUSIC) Greetings citizens of the internet. Welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best geek talk-show in the universe. I'm Ashley Esqueda. And I'm Jeff Cannata. Do you need some science and tech headlines? We gotcha. We do. Gather your drone forces everybody. Because one university is going teach you how to control and arm your drones with your mind. We've talked about Arizona State University's brain-powered drone work, but now they have taken it to the next level. This system uses an EEG cap that picks up which parts of the brain activate during Certain slots, and then translates those into commands for robots. Before, they were using just one drone for control, but now, the system can control up to four drones at once, which would allow four pilots to fly up to sixteen drones all at the same time, using only their minds. ASU hopes to keep working on the research and also aims to have multiple people controlling multiple robots simultaneously, so we'll keep an eye on it, and hopefully we'll have more to show you soon. Ashley, there is only one application for this technology, and that is drone armies. Advanced drone swarm warfare. That is the only, what other reason do fort people need to control 16 drones for, Ashley? I think you mean 16,000 drones. Why are we doing this?! It seems awesome. You know what else? I can think of one other use. Beautiful drone choreography in the sky, we're using our brain. Of death. Anyway, at least somebody is getting my letters, because now, There's a cowboy robot. Swagbot is part of a farm robot trial headed up by the University of Sydney. And he's officially out in the pastures. The robot has a variety of jobs, including herding cattle. And the idea here is to use robots in places where traditional humans on horseback would be too dangerous or remote. SwagBot is only helping herd cattle and sheep right now, but soon the team in Sydney will install motion temperature color and shape sensors to allow SwagBot to identify if any of its herd is sick or injured. Then, it can alert farmers and ranchers of the health of their animals, offering a high tech solution. Do an age-old profession. He's so like he's the sheepdog, but he's a robot. Get along little robot. So, what we're gonna end up having is robot cowboys Versus drone army, for the fate of humanity. And I'm putting my money on robot cowboy. You know what? They can eat the can once you're done eating the can of beans, by the campfire, they can eat the can. It's really handy. It works out. I'm having my can of beans- You're eating your can and then you just feed the can to the robot and you're done it's great. I wonder if it can sing songs around the campfire? That would be really nice. I would like that. It would be able to sing me some songs. Which one do you want to talk about since they are both really good stories. [LAUGH] Well, you wanna [INAUDIBLE] me? I think you're really excited about Swagbots. I love him. I want one. Let's talk about unorthodox robots. I like that. Seriously, unorthodox robots. Or unorthodox cowboys. [LAUGH] Or unorthodox cowboys. Cowboys. Cowbots? Cowbots. Hellbot, there you go. Hellboy? You guys need to use the hashtag HEYTD to talk to us about robot cowboys and whether or not, what other jobs you want to see robots performing that are weird. Yeah. And if we like your tweets, we will use them on the show. Yeah, we appreciate that. But now, let's check in with our phonetographer of the day. Today's phonetographer of the day is Haczar, who took this picture with a Galaxy 5. Haczar writes, this is my dog Nike, passed away not too long ago. He was my favorite person, and by person I mean, just look at him. He made everyone love him and laugh with him, in minutes after meeting him. As you could tell from the picture, he had such a dude personality. And I saw myself in him all the time. No matter what kind of day it was, he was always there to make it better. By the way, he also watched your show just like me. He was a loyal fan and forever friend and most consistently a blanket hog. This is so sweet, and you know what? This is a very nice tribute to what was obviously a wonderful best friend. Yeah. And I'm so glad you sent in this picture of Hazar because Nike is adorable. And we're so sorry that he's not around any more. But you know what? Now we got to meet him a little bit. And I'm really excited about that. So thank you for sending in your pet's phonetography. We only have one more week left. Yeah, but this has been so great. Our theme is the pets. So if you wanna be a phone-tographer, and have your pet featured on the show, even if it's an unconventional pet, you can send it to tomorrow@cnet.com. Yes, and you must follow four very important rules. One, you must tell us how to pronounce your name, if there's even a remote chance of us mispronouncing it. PayZar did a great job there. PayZar Crushed it. Tell us a story about your pet, because we love stories and also we love your pets. We do. Make sure you give us permission to use your picture on the show in your email, because that is very important. Our legal department says. And also make sure you tell us what device you took it on, because I find that terribly fascinating. Did you see yesterday? We had one from a blueberry passport. A Blackberry Passport. A Blackberry, blueberry? Blueberry passport you say? What is this? I have never heard of such a phone. Blueberry passport, you guys. Hashtag, blueberry, you can- I'm an idiot. That is it for today's show. Please, by all means, go and tweet at Jeff, Blueberry passport. So it's just any picture you can find that was taken with a Blueberry passport, I want to see it. That is it for the show. Turns out it's my last day on the show everybody. [LAUGH] Also, Blackberry just called, you're fired. [LAUGH] So that is it for the show. We'll be back tomorrow with a brand new docket of weird, wonderful science facts and science fiction. [MUSIC] But until then. Be a good human. See you guys next time, bye. [MUSIC]