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I drove past an office in Mountain View a couple of weeks ago in the middle of the night, and there were two Dalek-looking robots patrolling the empty parking lot, making whooshing noises, talking to nobody, and covered in flashing blue and white lights. It was surreal and funny and oddly unnerving.

They didn't look like these, so I guess there are at least two companies building autonomous security robots.

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There's also Knightscope, which appears to be based in MV.

http://knightscope.com/

Those are the Dalek-looking ones...

That's the one! They were the big white ones with round heads. Their blue light "eye" slot looks ominous in the dark.

Also, my first thought was, "I bet those are expensive...and they're just left outside in the open like that. I'd be worried someone would steal them."

No worries -- they can hire guards to watch them.

I wish you could find a video of that. I'd love to buy a pet robot Dalek and rig it to yell "EXTERMINATE!" at anyone who comes into my house.

You're in luck. I made a video.

https://goo.gl/photos/98fPZHRhaBofQqo47

That is one utterly adorable genocidal robot. Any chance of a little octopus monster riding around inside ;-)?

They're polite, at least. Not sure if it's clear in the video, but the one moving around says, "pardon me", as it ominously rolls forward.

We live in interesting times.

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