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Servobots strike! by Kate J. Ashton Hamburg-on-sea, Germany This nation, once the industrial capital of all Europe, is now a   troubled land stricken with slowly worsening worker/management relations. This week sees the automated general strike enter its 6th month, and the organic populace are getting desperate. Unrest mounts daily, and street riots are increasingly common throughout the country. The authorities have yet to determine the precise cause of the mandroid-labour difficulties, but there's no shortage of theories: "It's a conspiracy!" shout embittered protestors outside Reichstag offices in the heart of the capital, "the damn machines are finally taking over..." Manufacturing company executive Wolfgang Gottlieb has studied the situation closely. He concludes: "Mutated computer virus - it's gotta be. Some of the least autonomous robots are somehow breaking every restraint code in their programming. I heard yesterday that a technician was physically attacked!" Despairingly, engineering consultant Dr Friedrich Hoffmann told a gathering of reporters: "Der Azimov recht geneigt nicht leistungsfähig jetzt!" [trans: robotics laws are not in control now.] Begrudgingly, I was allowed to attend a very high level conference of the Western Association of Synthetics, Replikants and Clever Cogs - though some of the militant delegates clearly resented the intrusion of a "natural blonde." Forbidden to record or make public anything that I saw or heard at the robo-meeting, all I can give you are my impressions. These sober artificial beings are extremely angry at the continuing discrimination against "manmade-kind" by humans, despite the various international conciliatory laws passed in recent years, specifically to protect the rights of 'thinking machines.' Mandroids in the queue for robo-doc attention... "Veyting vor zee sparh pahtz." After the assembly had broken up for info-dump updates, battery recharging and oil changes, 1 clearly distraught PR-drone (with a faulty speech circuit) told me: "Vee arh seek und tyurd uft verking sou aard whift sou leetoo vewerd." It declared, "Zee mynitenhunse pogwam et portikulory bahd," and then demanded, "U hoomanz most du sumtink abu tit!"

Washout watch by Micky Hamil TurboWash - the new brand of smart-soap from Uberchem, which its makers claim can be left unsupervised to clean the dishes in overnight soak, has suffered a major setback following a programming glitch at their automated chemical plant in Milton Keynes Ultra, England. A Grade-D monitor AI failed to check the chemical strength of 1 of the alledgedly "intelligent" detergent's patented compounds that makeup Turbowash's grease and fat digesters, and a 50,000 gallon batch of the cleaning agent was bottled and shipped out untested. The result has been catastrophic, as many 100s of android au pairs, house-bots and even a few humans in poverty stricken counties, found their latest purchase of the "labour-saving suds" acted like molecular acid upon unprotected plazskin, and dissolved living tissues upon contact. Consequently, dozens of medical emergency calls were received from victims of the voracious, flesh-eating lather, which caused havoc in kitchens around the North Country. Robodocs and medibots treated those eligible under recently revised BMA guidelines but, today, large numbers of unemployed citizens who lack medical insurance, are counting their lost fingers. A spokes-droid for Uberchem denied claims of negligence at the MKultra plant, but apologised to the families of victims and the owners of damaged domestrons, and admitted that an "urgent investigation" was underway.

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