Walker, Texas Robot...

So this is pretty neat. Today isn't going to be much of a rant so much as it is me sharing something I found recently that I thought was pretty awesome. Apparently a lab has been working on walking robots, but it's not Japanese. In fact, it's a company called Boston Dynamics, and what they've come up with is... well... impressive to say the least. Does anyone remember the ASIMO disaster? The one where Toyota's little walking robot fell down the stairs while they were presenting it? If not, here's a recap:

 


Yeah.

So anyway, while not as shiny and pretty as Toyota's walking doll, there's been a slightly different approach to walking robots being done by Boston Dynamics...



This guy is called Big Dog, and as you can see, he's a bit more stable than our Toyota friend from earlier. And by a bit I mean by a whole shitload. The part on the ice was what I found most impressive. Apparently this company has been working with walking robots for a long time and also have a bipedal robot in the works as well, called PETMAN. You can probably check that out on youtube as well. Needless to say, I'm quite impressed with this thing and I thought I'd share it with those of you who happen to drop by once in a while.

I think good things will be coming of this eventually, and not just for military purposes. I just wish more funding and focus was put on things like this. I hope they keep up the good work on this!