That's really cool!

Wow, VERY impressive. When they give it camel feet it won't slip nearly so much. Very, very cool.

wow, this is depressing. what's that buzzing noise? it's like "the fly" dog created when jeff goldblum kicks his dog into the time travel machine.

it's interesting to see these advances, but it just makes me think of Philip K Dick's world, how androids are treated so inhumanely.

i feel really sorry for fly-dog.

The buzzing noise is more than likely all the motors and servos that control its movement. Due to the speed of movement I would have expected a little higher frequency "buzz".

The android-rights debate is an interesting one indeed. It is quite a simple matter when the robot is a hunk of metal on tracks but when you have something that can relay expressions based on the state of the internal process then it gets harder to see it as a "hunk of metal". Until true AI is reached though I will not have any issue seeing robots as hunks of metal... really cool and useful hunks of metal... but metal none-the-less. I do not know how I will feel once true AI is reached... thats a tough one.

it's interesting to know there are new-tech google related android projects going on (read your profile) and not just DOD projects like this one happening. i guess it's true that projects that are developed for DOD can end up doing the rest of society some good too though.

yay for the intarweb!!

Just to be clear... Google's Android is an open source operating system for mobile phones. It has nothing to do with robotics.

There is a lot of very cool robotics coming into the mainstream however. The Roomba has spawned a whole industry of similar single-function devices, and the amount of raw technology going into "toy" robots and things like the Lego Mindstorms is pretty amazing.

ah, my bad! no google public-internet search station androids w/ mass free public wifi, anytime soon?

Damn!

A laptop and some scouting about town should do the trick. Careful though... might get arrested with the stupid laws that are out there about "stealing bandwidth". I think that is total crap... if someone set up a wireless access point and didn't secure it then it should be free game!

>Careful though... might get arrested with the stupid laws that are out there about "stealing bandwidth".

I agree - this is ludicrous. Wifi should be completely open and free. My boyfriend has some interesting (controversial?) ideas on how we make wifi free, for good. It makes me smile.

Would be interesting to hear. I do not believe wifi should be open and free... someone has to pay for the bandwidth, infrastructure, and so forth. Many places offer it for free if you are a paying customer at their site. I support that 100%. I won't stay at a hotel that doesn't have free internet in the room but thats because I am already shelling out for the room. I also think the cities that are testing open wifi are pretty cool... but again, it isn't free. I am sure peoples taxes are paying for it.

There are a lot of non-DOD related robotics projects out there, mainly in academic worlds. The Google Android platform is actually a smart phone project and doesn't have anything to do with robots or actual androids. It is mis-leading.

DOD projects can do LOTS of good for society and not just by keeping society alive. The internet started as a DOD project. Jet propulsion is another good example. Not to mention LSD... :)

>Not to mention LSD... :)

Hah! Awesome. :)

You know, I felt exactly the same thing. How low can you be, kicking a robot dog?

I think the buzzing is the two-stroke engine used to power it. It's pretty annoying, not to mention polluting both noise-wise and air-wise. I'm would hope the later models would have a less nasty form of energy. But I'm not holding my breath.

I'm would hope the later models would have a less nasty form of energy. But I'm not holding my breath.

that would be cool.

The kick was to demonstrate or test the platform stabilizer feature. This is important for any robotic testing... imagine a robot transporting a human heart that was donated for a heart transplant that gets bumped into and knocked over... it cannot get back up and that heart doesn't make it to the patient who needs it.

It is the same thing as sticking a robot in a large oven and baking it up to 150 degrees so that they can be sure it will continue operating in hot, dry, desert conditions.

Just because it moves like a dog doesn't make it a dog. It is technology and it needs to be tested over a wide spectrum so that it gets better and can be more useful to the human race.

Oh, I know- it was purely an emotional response, not a rational one. You can put your fists down, now! :)

Sorry if I came across overly direct and seemed hostile. It is one of my not so favorable traits...

Not at all! I know all about "coming across wrong" as I'm almost an expert in that area. I was merely responding to your icon in what I hoped was a humorous way. Sigh. I should just stick to my one joke and leave the humor to other folks!

Countdown to when most people no longer want live pets: 3... 2...

Oh, after seeing one of the older Aibos recently, I've already decided that my next pet will not be live. :)

This thing is quite amazing! It'll only take the teensiest bit of anthropomorphization to have it stealing hearts!

What I want in a pet right now is fairly simple: greet me at the door, come when I call, randomly request attention, explore independently, be low-maintenance. These should be fairly simple routines to program into a robot.

Wow. It really looks the most alive to me when it's struggling to remain upright. I actually found myself sympathizing with it.

It's creepy, and very cool.

This is just beyond cool. I haven't seen anything this close to modeling a living creatures movement yet. I think this is closer to a dogs true movement than the Honda robot that mimics the human. Its ability to recover so well after being kicked and slipping on the ice is insane. I would really like to see what kind of hardware that thing has on it!!

I think Google's Android would be the most appropriate OS... ;-)

I really hope the ;-) at the end means you are kidding!! If not then I need to school you on robotic engineering!! :P

It's very cool, but it's actually been around for a while (I posted about it 2 years ago here: http://datan0de.livejournal.com/85681.html ). I wonder if they've progress with it since then? The potential applications of their technology are pretty broad, so I'm surprised that we haven't seen it in actual use yet.

Your old link to the video is dead - was it the exact same demonstration two years ago?

Two years in technology years - these things should have enslaved us by now... What is the holdup?!!?

You never know if it is being used right now or not. That is the joy of government projects... some technology is developed and demonstrated in the public sector, the government signs a contract with the company, and suddenly you never hear anything about it again.

The B-2 bomber is a perfect example of this. We were working on a "wing-shaped" aircraft back in the pre-jet days and then suddenly the project was canceled and that shape was never seen again... until years after the B-2 had been flying live missions and the public learned about it.

Who knows... the dog staring at me from across the room could be one of these things collecting information for the government... Ha.

It wasn't the exact same video, but it contained many of the same segments. I particularly remember the "getting kicked while walking on ice and recovering" bit. That was the main focus of the older video. It also showed Big Dog going over some rough terrain, but I don't recall seeing it jump or go through snow.

There's an article about it on Slashdot right now. It appears that the current version is a significant upgrade, with 4x the carrying capacity. Nice!