It’s been a little while since we’ve cleaned out our robot video backlog, so here you go, a gigantic steaming pile of awesomeness in the form of six more or less entirely random robot videos that we’ve made a special effort to choose. Just. For. You.
“No Robots” — Seriously, this is one of the most beautiful short films I’ve ever seen. It maybe even made me tear up a little bit. Maybe. Just don’t tell anyone, okay? Watch:
Via io9
23rd All Japan Robot Sumo Tournament— They put together this nice highlights vid, but if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, check out 4:55, where the winner of the R/C bracket takes on the winner of the Autonomous bracket. I won’t spoil it, but it’s awesome:
Happy Robotic New Year— In celebration of the Chinese New Year, we’ve got a robotic dance troupe performing on what has to be one of the most impressive stages I’ve ever seen:
PS: Do you know the name of the robots in the video and who makes them? Post your answer in the comments section below and if we can confirm that you’re right we’ll send you an exclusive Automaton t-shirt.
Machines Have Beautiful Souls— Or I guess maybe not, if you believe this 1963 film made by Jim Henson (yes, thatJim Henson) for AT&T (known back then as Bell) as part of an “elite seminar for business owners:”
Eight Years On Mars — Opportunity (Oppy to her friends) is celebrating her eighth year on Mars. I’d tell you how many days past her original 90-day warranty that is, but I can’t count that high:
Fault Lines — From Al Jazeera comes this excellent feature (I might even say “gripping”) on how robots are shaping war, with input from people like Ron Arkin, P. W. Singer, and Peter Asaro. Oh, and CHARLI puts on an appearance too. It’s 24 minutes long, but entirely worth your time:
And if you’re still hankering for more robot videos, some random blog called Hizook has picked out every single TED Talk about robots and put them all on one eminently browse-able page. Well, this is actually just part one (with about 20 talks), and there are still like 50 more out there too... I imagine Hizook will bring you those after you’ve made it through this first batch. Check them out here.
