Robot Fred Keeps His Guard Up

He can “see” through walls, detect body heat and motion 150 feet in any direction, and can warn of fire or flood. But Fred the robot was having more than a little difficulty navigating over the cracks in the sidewalks of New York as he took a promotional stroll through Wall Street. Marketed by Denning Mobile Robotics of Woburn, Mass., Fred is designed to replace human guards on patrol in warehouses, shopping malls, prisons and other places where a mute guard might be needed. Denning President Warren George, who guided the four-foot-tall, 485-pound black robot with a joy stick as he staggered over the pavement to the amusement of tourists and other passers-by, said: “We should have put on its soft tires. It’s too bumpy out here.” A robot like Fred is already patrolling the World Trade Center in Boston and is being marketed nationwide at a cost of $69,000. John Parker, a human security guard at Morgan Guaranty, was skeptical that the electronic upstart could do his job. “It won’t be any good if it can’t shoot,” he said. Hank Jenson, 14, of Tacoma, Wash., voiced what may have been on everyone’s mind: “It looks like a vacuum cleaner.”

--A drama professor and his playwright wife confess: “We can’t pass up a used-book store.” Which may be why, among the 10,000 books crammed into their home and garage in Storrs, Conn., they have more than 800 copies of “Black Beauty” and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” David Heilweil began his collection of “Black Beauty” books 24 years ago when he found five editions of the Anna Sewall book in his horse-loving daughter’s bedroom. His collection includes editions in Gaelic, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian phonetics and Braille. His wife, Eva Wolas, collects versions of the fairy tale Goldilocks, which originated in Scandinavia as the tale of an old woman with long silver locks. Wolas said much of the classic tale was lost in translation when the story of “Silverlocks” was put into English verse in 1831 by poet Eleanor Mure.

--White House employees have a new think tank: a hot tub that seats eight. It’s part of an exercise room recently installed in the New Executive Office Building. For a fee of $148 a year, all White House employees, from President Reagan to custodians, can make use of the facility, which also includes a sauna and other fitness equipment. Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater described it as “a very Spartan room where you’d find old men coming in there and trying to limber up.” In other words, a place to chew the fat and lose it at the same time.