We’re starting to see some of the DARPA Robotics Challenge’s contenders take shape: Carnegie Mellon just announced that it’s building an ape-like robot, but with tank treads undergirding all four limbs.
Robotics
Finally, a Robotic Dog That Can Toss Cinder Blocks Like They’re Beanbags
And here we have the latest BigDog video, wherein Boston Dynamics has outfitted man’s best friend with the ability to whip cinder blocks around.
Should We Ban ‘Killer Robots’? Human Rights Group Thinks So
As if deploying drones — unmanned aerial vehicles — on the battlefield wasn’t controversial enough, here’s an even more disturbing question: Should we allow weapon-wielding robots that can “think” for themselves to attack people?
Finally, Humans Can Hang Out with Rats by Using Virtual Reality and Robotics
Science, you’re kind of crazy — especially when you’re doing stuff like this.
Watch: Guy Uses Thought-Controlled Bionic Leg to Climb 103-Story Chicago Skyscraper
This is definitely from the future: a guy, using the power of his mind, literally, to control a bionic leg and climb a skyscraper in Chicago — all 103 floors.
Watch: Humanlike DARPA Robot Climbs and Leaps from Obstacles with Mad Skills
Picture an eerily human-like tangle of metal, wiring and lights, cables dangling from somewhere above like puppet strings. Imagine it springing to life, lifting a long, lanky leg that bends 180 degrees at the hips.
Meet X1, the Exoskeletal Robot Suit that Could Make Astronauts Super-Strong
When you read about robotics and human assistance devices, the inception-to-commercial-reality arrow usually points from military or space-based research back to civilian applications, say in the health industry. Infrared ear …
Take Kinect, Add Robotics, Strap to a Human and Presto — Automatic Building Mapper!
Mapping the insides of anything in real time is hard. Certainly harder than it looks in movies like The Dark Knight, where, near the end, a bat-suited Christian Bale dashes through a high-rise, taking out small squadrons of …
Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Future of U.S. Space Exploration After Curiosity
In four days, NASA’s Curiosity rover will hopefully survive its “seven minutes of terror” and land safely on the surface of Mars. What comes next for U.S. space exploration?
Techland decided to ask famed astrophysicist Neil …
Mission to Mars: 8 Amazing Tech Tools Aboard NASA’s Curiosity Rover
Everyone’s talking about the $2.5 billion Curiosity rover‘s “terrifying” Hollywood-blockbuster-worthy landing: seven knuckle-in-teeth minutes in early August during which its aeroshell-armored bulk will plummet through Mars’ thin …
How Insect-Inspired Legs Could Help Robots Walk on Asteroids
James Cameron created a Titanic-sized stir when he invested in Planetary Resources Inc., an asteroid mining operation co-chaired by personal spaceflight pioneers Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson. While Planetary Resources might …
Scientists Finally Create Robotic Buttocks That React to Human Touch
Technology has enriched our lives in so many ways. The world’s best and brightest created the Internet, cracked the human genome and landed machines on Mars. Also, someone created a robotic butt.
Nobuhiro Takahashi of the …