Kevin Warwick, a.k.a.
Captain Cyborg, is viewed with bemused contempt by many
academics and
technology enthusiasts in the UK. He is the man the
media turns to whenever they need a sensationalist soundbite about
robots taking over the world. A manic self-publicist with an unfortunately
Gumby-esque public speaking style, Warwick has very little new to add to our understanding of
cybernetics,
robotics and
artificial intelligence. But he has some great robot turtles (circa 1983) in his lab.
Highlights of his career include being stopped at customs for having a robot shaped like a cat (a sophisticated robot indeed - being a couple of servos attached to cat-shaped sheet of metal), writing doom-mongering books, and implanting a radio-transmitting chip under his skin that 'automatically' controls lights and doors in his lab (which invariably provokes interviewers to ask "so what?"). There are many more of his knuckleheaded schemes at the site blowdart mentions above, and The Register (www.theregister.co.uk) generally reports on his exploits (and debunks them).
N.B. : I've categorised this writeup as 'person', because we don't have a 'cyborg' category yet. Sorry Kevin, I'm sure you'll understand.