The Register's Lewis Page reports today (with tongue firmly in cheek) on a looming threat to world peace.

"Academics funded by a sinister triumvirate of global corporations intend to see Wi-Fi-controlled robots in every home, school, and office across the free world," Page writes. "In a particularly cunning twist, the professors and their shadowy backers intend that this mechanoid fifth column be assembled DIY-style by innocent dupes -- perhaps harmless geeks, robotics hobbyists, or schoolchildren."

Google, Intel and Microsoft are funding a robot-building project "in which Carnegie Mellon professor Illah Nourbakhsh's Community Robotics, Education, and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) team have chummed up with Charmed Labs to create what they call the Telepresence Robot Kit, or TeRK," Page writes. "The core of TeRK is Qwerk, the Linux-driven 200MHz ARM9 brain unit, available from Charmed Labs for just $349. Qwerk can handle video webcam input and has an array of servo controllers, built-in Wi-Fi, and so on."

More here from InformationWeek ... more here from Ars Technica ... more here from ScienceDaily ... more here from Network World ... and the press release is here.