Thursday, March 20, 2008

Boston Dynamics' Spooky Gas-powered, Concrete Robot, Big Dog...



It's loud, it looks like a gigantic insect scrambling over the hill, and it lives! This is by far the spookiest thing I've seen this year. "Big Dog" is a robot that can carry 350 pounds, walk through brush, bombed out buildings, and even on ice. This was created by Boston Dynamics on a grant from "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency." We're so screwed!

Earlier this year I read How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion by Daniel H. Wilson. . .Wilson drops robotics history trivia nuggets and descriptions of current robot research into this scary and funny guide to surviving the inevitable robot apocalypse. And seeing Big Dog, it feels like we're just a little bit closer to that Robot-Homo Sapien meet-up.
---o0o---

1 comment:

Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. said...

Kind of makes you think they are probably working Little Dog as well.