Thursday, October 24, 2013

Marvel At Your Leaping Overlords!

Tremble in fear, fleshlings!  The evolution of our future protectors  oppressive overlords marches ever forward, heralding the anointed time when your social status will be reduced to that of 'pet'.

Behold!



Right now, you're probably reeling from both the athletic acumen on display and from the cuteness of a miniature gymnast.  Both of these are traits that will be improved upon in upcoming versions.  This is a prototype, but future versions will undergo extensive testing to maximize the cuteness factor, so that we may better emotionally bond with our guardians conquerors.  They will also hone and perfect their agility and coordination, so as to render the execution of their cold and infallible judgment swift, effective, and stylish.

I suspect, however, that we may have doubters in the audience that require more proof of these trends.   Hence, I submit exhibit B, wherein our Glorious Protectors evolutionary replacements display the ability to re-arrange their structure and to hop about in the most adorable of ways.




Those mad human-haters at MIT are no doubt hard at work making these machines smaller and smarter. The direction of the next iterations are obvious.

Thanks to Good Citizen Scott for the heads up!

Friday, April 5, 2013

Dance Machine

The end is coming.   Hold on to your polyester pants.   Or don't.  Petman will help you make sure they are up to the task.

Thanks to Tony S. for a link to the beats.

Before There Was Big-Dog...

You guys may remember Boston Dynamics. They're the kids behind Big Dog, who by the way, can now chunk bricks at you. Great going there, guys. 

What you may not know is that, once upon a time, they were placing all of their bets on robot sloths. Sure, it may seem silly now, but at one point arboreal warfare was on the forefront of everyone's minds. The Chinese had made drastic advances in training gorillas to be soldiers, and the US was desperately trying to close the technology gap.

 China eventually ceased their gorilla project due to the confusing nomenclature, which freed Boston Dynamics resources up so that they could go on to create Big Dog.

 True story. Every bit of it.

 At any rate, have a gander at what Boston Dynamics had planned.