Boston Dynamics, the Massachusetts-based company that builds increasingly sophisticated robots that enjoy opening doors, has released two more videos of its robots doing very clever things that will definitely not come back to haunt humanity at a later date. In the first video, Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot Atlas is out jogging, all the better to …
Coral reefs are in big trouble. A combination of climate change and humanity’s inability to clean up after itself has devastated a huge amount of reef coverage, which also happens to be the habitat of many fish and other aquatic animals. If we lose the reefs we destabilize the entire ocean ecosystem, and the effects …
Robots come in all shapes and sizes, and while robotics experts are often inspired by nature when designing new bots, you probably wouldn’t think a snake would provide much inspiration. You’d be wrong, of course, because researchers just invented a way to make snake-like robots slither along the ground, and they did it using a …
The Twitterati have been freaked out for several days now over a video showcasing the creepy door-opening ability of the SpotMini, a dog-like robot from Boston Dynamics. The robot is so creepily life-like, it quickly became the top trending video on Tuesday and prompted a flurry of only slightly humorous tweets warning that the beginning …
We joke a lot about the “inevitable” robot apocalypse, but aside from a few scary developments it seems like humanity is much more likely to disappear thanks to nuclear weapons or a dying Earth than a robot takeover. That’s good(?) news, because a company seemingly inspired by some of the most brutal fictional robots just …
It was bleak medical diagnosis for his young nephew that put the idea in Manmeet Maggu’s head to launch a startup focused on robotic exoskeletons for children. A few years ago, Maggu and Trexo Robotics co-founder Rahul Udasi were still undergraduates at the University of Waterloo. That’s when they found out Maggu’s nephew had been …
If you have science fiction nightmares of a robot apocalypse you should probably just stop reading right now. For those of you still here, I have good(?) news! Scientists at Boston Children’s Hospital have invented a robot that can be implanted into the body where it pulls on organs in order to promote tissue growth …
We often think of robots as superior to ourselves, but when it comes to the abilities afforded us by our muscles, robots have a hard time keeping up. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder are working to change that with newly-developed soft muscles that work a lot like our own, and can even heal …
When you consider all of the ways that humanoid robots are better than actual humans — they’re stronger, faster, and don’t complain when they stub their toes — you probably don’t take heat into account. Robots tend to get pretty hot when they’re doing serious work, and cooling them down is a serious challenge for …
Okay, enough is enough. Boston Dynamics has been showing off its robots for years and years now, and they’ve always been pretty cool, but they’re also awkward, clumsy mechanical beasts… or at least they used to be. The Atlas bot, which we’ve seen fall flat on its face on numerous occasions, never seemed like much …
