Blog Post:
Happy Friday, everyone! There's really nothing insightful or informative about this post, other than some robot video amusement for your afternoon.
Our first video is from the group Flight of the Conchords, who have created a song that describes life after the coming robot Armageddon. Personally I'm prepared to welcome my new robot overlords, thanks to my Old Glory Robot Insurance, but it's interesting to see the situation from the robots' side. Be sure to watch through the end for the binary solo.
Blog Post:
Like iRobot, the good folks at Boston Dynamics (makers of the famous Big Dog and other awesome robots) have created their own YouTube channel. More importantly, all their videos are there in high-definition (after you start playing, click on the "HD" button in the bottom of the YouTube window), making for a superior creepy-robot-watching experience. Though Big Dog is the most famous of Boston Dynamics's technology, their other robots (like Little Dog and RHex) make an appearance as well.
This one, below, is an example of a video that looks great in high def and it's also one I …
Blog Post:
If you have a high tolerance for military jargon ("situational awareness"), civilian cliches ("a leg up on the competition"), and generally meaningless phrases dripping with overwrought technophilia ("pushing the envelope on what reality is as we know it"-- what?), have I got a video for you.
The Fort Benning public affairs office has discovered Big Dog, and as their correspondent puts it, "the robotics revolution is here." The Georgia base's news service, the Benning Report, covered Big Dog being put through its paces.
But the most …
Blog Post:
Two new items and one I should have mentioned a long time ago:
Boston Dynamics, of BigDog fame, looks likely to get a new contract from DARPA to build the next gen of their creepy yet awesome quadruped. Though the proposals aren't due till next year (and take it from a defense contractor, these things tend to be delayed even more), the specs appear to be tailored for the Big Dog design and Boston Dynamics is certainly the best contender. The solicitation, titled "Legged Squad Support System (LS3)", specifies improvements to terrain handling features, increased payload capabilities, …
AMAM 2008 was a one-week, single-track conference, including four keynotes, over 70 posters, and a "robot zoo" populated by a menagerie of mobile machines. The coffee break buzz indicated that most of the 150 attendees found the meeting to be a superb confluence of the cutting edge in bio-inspired robotics.
Locomotion specialists from both biology and engineering were well represented, and the meeting continually …
Blog Post:
A report from our correspondent Sally Adee, who earlier this month was at DARPATech, the Pentagon's R&D extravaganza, where she met, among other creatures, a little robotic dog called, well, Little Dog:
This little guy was all the rage at the DARPATech 2007 exhibit hall.
â''Can I pet him?â'' a girl asked the researchers standing next to it. â''No,â'' they told her. â''Can I have him?â'' she insisted. â''No, sorry." She thought about it for a minute. â''Can I talk to him?â'' she finally asked. â''Well, you could,â'' the researchers …