It’s fitting that the European renaissance of automata, or kinetic sculptures designed to mimic human movement, began with a clockmaker—like their timekeeping counterparts, automata operate on cue, ...

We usually think of robots as an achievement of the modern era. But this remarkable machine is proof that the resourceful inventors of the 19th Century had the technology to create their own automata.

In Japan, clockwork automata (karakuri ningyō) emerged in the 17th century, and were mainly sold to wealthy or important people who used them to impress guests. These little mechanical dolls have an ...

The developers behind “Bitcraft: Age of Automata” want you to build the world from the ground up. Villages, towns, cities, nations and empires are all in players hands. That’s how Clockwork Labs ...

For a moment, suspend your worldview and adopt Descartes’s mechanistic interpretation that living beings are essentially complex machines: a collection of inherently unrelated parts that move and ...

Simon Schaffer presented Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams Credit: Photo: BBC BBC Four’s documentary Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams was, in itself, a marvel. Presented by the pugnacious ...