While an old meat smoker atop a three-wheel scooter covered in impact-resistant rubber with attached spotlight, infrared camera, loudspeaker and water cannon, may not be Iron Mans new sidekick, it is working for one neighborhood in Atlanta. Rufus Terrill, a bar owner, got sick of the drug dealers, petty thieves and vandals around his downtown location so he built the 4-foot-tall, 300 pound device to fight crime. The robot crime stopper looks imposing but Rufus says that it is quite harmless and that every criminal is given 20 seconds to comply.

mrneutron2003 writes to tell us that StupidFilter, a new Open Source project started by Gabriel Ortiz and Paul Starr, plans to provide an intellectual prophylactic for memetically transmitted diseases. "Too long have we suffered in silence under the tyranny of idiocy. In the beginning, the internet was a place where one could communicate intelligently with similarly erudite people. Then, Eternal September hit and we were lost in the noise. The advent of user-driven web content has compounded the matter yet further, straining our tolerance to the breaking point. It's time to fight back."