After meeting an untimely and unsavoury end in Philadelphia by beheading, robotics experts and hackers in the 'city of brotherly love' are offering to repair the Canadian-made robot that had hoped to add the US to Canada, the Netherlands and Germany as countries it had traversed with the kindness of strangers.
Just two weeks and 300 miles (482 km) into its cross-country journey, hitchBot – a cheerful little robot who wore Wellington boots, gardening gloves, and a friendly lit-up smile – was sadly taken out by bandits who decapitated the little guy and put an end to the social experiment conducted by Canadian researchers.