Take a moment from your natural paranoia concerning robots taking over the world (or is that just my natural paranoia?) to observe the latest in robot walking technology. Robots need to be able to walk if they’re going to navigate the same places we navigate, and walking is considerably more useful than rolling when you’re out in nature. (Perhaps why so many species do it.)
This robot, called DURUS, can not only walk independently, it can groove. Its walking style is decidedly funky, and that seems to be due to a funky walking style actually requiring less energy. At least that’s one of the takeaways you can get from this article at the IEEE’s web site which talks more about the whole thing and even gives a link to a video talking more about DURUS.
Which I have to say, brings up two very real possibililites. One, that the robot uprising will be coming more quickly than we potentially realized, and two that when it does come, it will be seriously funky.
