Tag Archives: Boston Dynamics

The Verge reports: Is Boston Dynamics slowly preparing to put its bipedal robots to work? In a glossy new video, the company has shown off its prototype Atlas robot tossing planks and tool bags around in a fake construction site. It’s a notable change in messaging from the Hyundai-owned company, which has never previously emphasized how its bipedal machines could …

Axios reports: Several robotics companies, including Boston Dynamics, are pledging not to support the weaponization of their products and are calling for others in the industry to do the same, according to a letter shared first with Axios. Robots, like drones before them, have a wide range of peaceful and even life-saving uses, but can be turned into war-fighting machines, …

The Verge reports: Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics has released a holiday video featuring its dog-like Spot robot, and it’s turned out as creepy as ever. The video, posted to Twitter, starts innocuously enough — there’s a large present of the type anyone would be happy to see under their tree, sitting in a courtyard. Then, the gift stands up and walks …

CNET reports: The world’s greatest rock and roll band has met its match in the world’s greatest robot dog. Boston Dynamics’ creepy-cute Spot whipped out its best moves-like-Jagger impression in a shot-by-shot video tribute to The Rolling Stones’ 1981 hit (and Windows 95 commercial jingle) Start Me Up. The video shows Spot mimicking the dancing and singing of front man …

The Drive reports: Ghost Robotics and SWORD International have teamed up to create a rifle-toting “robot dog.” Called the Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle, or SPUR, the system adds a 6.5mm Creedmoor rifle from SWORD to one of Ghost Robotics’ quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicles, or Q-UGVs. The SPUR made its debut on the show floor at the Association of the U.S. …

USA Today reports: Boston Dynamics, the company known for its robotic dogs, now has a humanoid robot capable of doing gymnastics. The robotics company previously has shown how its robot dogs can go down stairs and open doors. Some police departments have begun using the robot dogs, typically called Spot, to help patrol. And Atlas, which the company dubbed “the …

The Verge reports: Hyundai has officially completed its acquisition of Boston Dynamics, the creator of the internet’s favorite dancing Spot and Atlas robots (which only occasionally look like dystopian nightmare machines). And to celebrate, the company is collaborating with K-pop sensation BTS on a new video that shows seven Spot robots grooving to the band’s 2020 song “IONIQ: I’m On …

The Honolulu Civil Beat reports: The Honolulu Police Department used $150,045 in federal funds intended to respond to the pandemic to acquire a robot dog named Spot, according to city spending data. As for its use helping Honolulu combat COVID-19, the city’s spending data says Spot was purchased to take people’s temperatures at HPD’s tent city for homeless people. In …

The New York Daily News reports: The NYPD’s robot dog has been hounded out of service. The police department will return Digidog to robotics manufacturer Boston Dynamics after months of backlash and mockery that compared the four-legged bot to a dystopian sci-fi surveillance nightmare. John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, confirmed Wednesday the NYPD had cancelled …

Gothamist reports: The NYPD’s robot dog is once again stirring privacy concerns and cyberpunk prophesies of some New Yorkers, after the four-legged machine was spotted inside of a Manhattan public housing complex on Monday. A video shared on Twitter shows the robot trotting out of a building on East 28th Street in front of two NYPD officers, then slowly descending …

The Verge reports: Spot, the quadruped robot built by US firm Boston Dynamics, has appeared alongside soldiers during military exercises carried out by the French army. The robot was apparently being used for reconnaissance during a two-day training exercise, but the deployment raises questions about how and where Boston Dynamics’ machines will be used in future. Pictures of the exercises …

The Verge reports: The robot is called Stretch and looks relatively dull for a Boston Dynamics creation. It’s not modeled after humans or animals, and instead aims to be as practical as possible. It has a square mobile base containing a set of wheels, a “perception mast” with cameras and other sensors, and a huge robotic arm with seven degrees …

NBC News reports: An internet-enabled art installation that launched Wednesday offers a strange proposition: the chance to pilot a $75,000 four-legged robot named Spot that is armed with a paintball gun. The robot may be familiar to people who have seen various viral videos of similar robots from Boston Dynamics that have offered a sometimes startling glimpse at leaps in …

The Verge reports: Boston Dynamics’ Atlas and Spot robots can do a lot of things: sprinting, gymnastic routines, parkour, backflips, open doors to let in an army of their friends, wash dishes, and (poorly) get actual jobs. But the company’s latest video adds another impressive trick to our future robotic overlords’ repertoire: busting sick dance moves. The video sees Boston …

The Associated Press reports: You can now buy one of those unnerving animal-like robots you might have seen on YouTube — so long as you don’t plan to use it to harm or intimidate anyone. Boston Dynamics on Tuesday started selling its four-legged Spot robots online for just under $75,000 each. The agile robots can walk, climb stairs and open …

Engadget reports: If what you need today is a dog robot twerking to “Uptown Funk,” well then you’re in luck. Boston Dynamics’ SpotMini robot is featured in a new video intended to show off its mobility, and it certainly does that as the robot dog steps, gyrates and dances in time with music. The SpotMini goes on sale sometime in …

The New York Daily News reports: A robotics company known for its widely shared videos of nimble, legged robots opening doors or walking through rough terrain is preparing to sell some after more than a quarter century of research. Boston Dynamics CEO Marc Raibert said Friday that his company plans to begin selling the dog-like SpotMini robot next year, likely …

The Verge reports: We’ve seen Boston Dynamics robots open doors before, but this egress is different. Outfitted with an articulating arm and clamp similar to the one it used to wash dishes in the original video, we see the new SpotMini locate, recognize, and deftly operate a door handle, and then hold the door to let its arm-less sibling march …

Via TechCrunch: Boston Dynamics, the company behind some of the most impressively terrifying and terrifyingly impressive robots of the past decade, is demonstrating its softer side with a video showcasing the Alphabet-owned firm’s latest creation. The SpotMini is a sort of tiny robot giraffe capable of an impressive battery of skills, demonstrated in the video by jaunting up a flight …

Over 7 million views in one day. From Boston Dynamics: A new version of Atlas, designed to operate outdoors and inside buildings. It is specialized for mobile manipulation. It is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. It uses sensors in its body and legs to balance and LIDAR and stereo sensors in its head to avoid obstacles, assess the terrain, help …