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WildCat Runs Faster Than You, Untethered
Boston Dynamics WildCat robot can now run at 16 miles per hour untethered outside the lab. Watch the following video while putting on your running shoes.
(Boston Dynamics WildCat robot)
SF fans will no doubt recall the Rat Thing from Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash:
The body is Rottweiler-sized, segmented into overlapping hard plates like those of a rhinoceros. The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's. It must be the tail that makes people refer to it as a Rat Thing, because that's the only ratlike part - incredibly long and flexible.
(Read more about Stephenson's Rat Thing)
I'm also partial to the slamhound, a robotic attack dog described in the 1986 novel Count Zero by William Gibson:
THEY sent A SLAMHOUND on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair...
(Read more about the slamhound)
I would be derelict in my responsibility to provide you with earlier references, like the mechanical hound from Ray Bradbury's 1953 classic Fahrenheit 451:
He turned and the Mechanical Hound was there.It was half across the lawn, coming from the shadows, moving with such drifting ease that it was like a single solid cloud of black-grey smoke blown at him in silence.
It made a single last leap into the air, coming down at Montag from a good three feet over his head, its spidered legs reaching...
I guess Boston Dynamics will need to work on the engine noise from their quadruped robots...
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/7/2013)
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Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'
DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
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'Only I heard that!'
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'Fess was very dutiful'
When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You?
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
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'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
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'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
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'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
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'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
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'The electronic body analyzer had been developed...'
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'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
VaMEx Biomimetic Mars Robot Inspired By Skink
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
