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Lifelike robotic dog, your pet or your hunter? [I Heart Tech]

March 20th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

This is cutting edge robotic technology. This robotic dog weighs 235lbs, with a 340lb payload. Developed by Boston Dynamics for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), it looks like Life imitating Art - art from Half Life 2 that is, vis-à-vis the “Hunter” (link goes to an example of a Hunter from Half Life 2).

Scenes from the robot dog movie include:

walking, trotting, running (aka variable speed)
balance (like I’ve never seen before in a robot on four legs - 0:35 and 1:24)
obstacles (2:22); up/down hill; uneven ground
jumping - yes JUMPING! Like a fucking horse!! (3:03 - 3:18)

Now, I Heart Tech, but I can’t help feeling some heebie-jeebies about the possibility of packs of these things being present for “crowd control” at protests and rallies, and maybe even concerts and sporting events, when they’re more developed and can actually run and jump higher. Maybe I’m crazy, this is I Heart Chaos after all, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this robo-hell hound equipped with pepper spray and a taser, and some law enforcement gamer dude sitting in a van somewhere, disconnected from the reality of the situation, controlling this thing and being just slightly more trigger happy than the taser cops we hear about today.

I wonder what Isaac Asimov would say.

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