Robohack wired for war zones

It lacks the white-suited glamour of a Martin Bell or the indomitable spirit of a Kate Adie. It could never have liberated Kabul with the swashbuckling elan of John Simpson.

On the other hand, it doesn't matter much if it wanders too close to a missile, and it doesn't run up an expense account.

It is the world's first robotic war correspondent - a solar-powered, all-terrain reporting machine capable of filing dispatches from areas considered too dangerous for humans to visit - and it was announced yesterday by the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts: an event to quicken the hearts of news budget directors around the world.

With a "face" made up of a video screen and two cameras, the Afghan Explorer - modelled on Nasa's Mars Explorer - is equipped with heat and light sensors and systems to transmit audio and video signals from the thick of combat.

Its inventor, Chris Csikszentmihalyi, says he was prompted by his disgust at the grainy blotches of green-on-black which were often the only footage available of the US assault in Afghanistan.

Its "unique combination of hardware and software", Professor Csikszentmihalyi writes, allows it to gather images and sound, conduct two-way interviews, and interact with the local population.

"The Explorer is a powerful robotic stringer, homage to the bravery of war reporters in the past, and a reminder that wars should not be an exception to the freedom of the press."

The Pentagon, stung by a Washington Post reporter's claim last month that soldiers threatened to shoot him if he strayed close to the scene of a US attack, declined to say how it would treat a robot replacement.

But veteran journalists said the Afghan Explorer would be shunned by its colleagues - a fate it could probably tolerate.

"We've talked about this kind of thing for a long time, since the Gulf War," said Walter Dean, of the Pew Project on Excellence in Journalism.

"Without a human being there to tell you what you're seeing, the picture will get the facts right, but it will not tell you whether they are the right facts."