Prisoners at the Santa Rita Jail in Pleasanton, California will be served food, laundry, and other supplies by computer controlled service vehicles in an ambitious new scheme to stem violence and increase security, writes Newsbytes, which notes that the Automatic Guided Vehicle System designed by Bechtel Inc and implemented by Apogee Robotics of Fort Collins, Colorado, consists of 11,000 feet of guide path, a controlling computer system, and 19 automated power units: the concept of robot warders will be nothing new to aficionados of the Australian soap Prisoner, Cell Block H, whose theme song made it to number three in the UK Top 40 at the beginning of the month – the wooden acting of the warders at Wentworth, led by would-be Mrs Thatcher sound-alike Mrs Davidson, who can’t quite manage what is intended to be an English accent, makes robots seem prositively animated by comparison.
