from the for-humanitarian-uses-we-promise-military dept.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports on the US Defense Secretary being briefed on the latest from DARPA.
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel got a first-hand look at a life-size robot Tuesday, the latest experiment by the Pentagon's hi-tech researchers. The hulking Atlas robot (developed by Boston Dynamics) is designed not as a warrior but as a humanitarian machine that would rescue victims in the rubble of a natural disaster, officials said.
Scientists also showed Hagel the latest technology for prosthetics, including a mechanical hand that responds to brain impulses and a prosthetic arm controlled by foot movements.
Let's all give a big welcome to our new robotic and cyborg overlords.
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Over a year after signalling its intentions to dump the robotics demonstration company Boston Dynamics, Alphabet/Google has finally found a buyer: SoftBank. SoftBank acquired ARM Holdings for around $32 billion in 2016. Google also offloaded another robotics company, Schaft:
Google's ambitions for Boston Dynamics were never really clear. Before being acquired, the robotics company was mostly funded by DARPA—the US military's research division—with the express purpose of creating militarised robots. Within a year of being picked up, though, Google announced that it would no longer pursue any DARPA contracts, presumably to focus on possible commercial uses for the bots. No commercial robots ever emerged.
SoftBank, however, has had success with commercialising robots—specifically the small humanoid robot Pepper.
Also at The Verge, The Guardian, TNW, CNN, CNBC, and TechCrunch.
Previously: Pentagon Scientists Show Off Robot And Prosthetics
Google's Noisy "BigDog" Robot Fails to Impress U.S. Marine Corps
Google's Latest Boston Dynamics Robot Takes a Stand
Boston Dynamics Produces a Wheeled Terror as Google Watches Nervously
Google bought robotics company Boston Dynamics a little over two years ago. Now, a potential customer for the hulking "BigDog" quadruped pack mule is balking due to noise concerns:
The US military's flirtation with robotic pack animals looks set to end: the Marine Corps has halted further testing of the BigDog contrivance from Google stablemate Boston Dynamics.
BigDog, aka the Legged Squad Support System, has been under development at a cost of $32m, with the goal of making a four-legged machine capable of carrying 400lb (181kg) of supplies. The final design did just that, but painted a target on the troops it was supporting.
"As Marines were using it, there was the challenge of seeing the potential possibility because of the limitations of the robot itself. They took it as it was: a loud robot that's going to give away their position," Kyle Olson, a spokesman for the Marine's Warfighting Lab, told Military.com.
BigDog's carrying power wasn't disputed, and the robot dealt well with clambering over rough terrain without a human controlling it during the 2014 Rim of the Pacific war games. But the power needed to do all this required a petrol engine, which was so loud that the enemy could hear soldiers approaching before they saw them.
Boston Dynamics did develop a smaller, electric-powered robotic dog called Spot. This was also tried out by the Marines at its massive Quantico base in Virginia, but Spot could only carry 40lb (18kg) of equipment and needed a human to guide it.
Two YouTube videos accompanying the article.
Related: Pentagon Scientists Show Off Robot And Prosthetics
Marines give Google's latest robot a tryout as "working dog"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Saturday April 26 2014, @12:30AM
I would like you to apologize for making people believe "Robocop" was unrealistic, "Enemy of the state" an exaggeration, "Minority Report" something that needs mutated humans rather than big databases, "Surrogates" something that would wait for perfect robotics rather than cell phones, and so on...
.
More importantly, I demand an apology for having us believe that somehow humanity always finds a way out of these traps we set for our grandchildren's futures.
(Score: 2) by lx on Saturday April 26 2014, @06:44AM
More importantly, I demand an apology for having us believe that somehow humanity always finds a way out of these traps we set for our grandchildren's futures.
So you're giving up? Humanity has so far survived 8000 years of recorded history and technological progress, empires rise and fall all the time and you sit in a corner sulking because the army has got a couple of new toys?
Don't underestimate our talent for survival. We evolved from the tiny rat like creatures that outlasted the dinosaurs. Nothing can stop us.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 28 2014, @04:11PM
"nothing can stop us" is the problem.
There isn't a real-life Bruce Willis to show the armed forces that they are going too far.
The military-industrial complex is going to keep pushing for more of the surveillance and robots. Nobody can stop them, because they own the people who officially have the power to.
People have a talent for survival. They'll chose between obedient serfs happy that their masters let them pay to watch the NCAA and HBO, or hiding down in the Amazon.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 26 2014, @03:08PM
Well, "Robocop" was unrealistic, but not for its AI robot (actually I'd not be surprised if that pure robot in the movie could already be built with current technology), but for the cyborg robocop.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by qwerty on Saturday April 26 2014, @12:47AM
From the Boston Dynamics page: "Atlas is powered from an off-board, electric power supply via a flexible tether."
How would we ever defeat one of these robots?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 26 2014, @03:29AM
Ask SEELE, the bad guys in this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangeli on [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 26 2014, @12:35PM
nah, seems more like a valid security feature. if these things had on-board power sources like a nuclear battery and didn't have a majority of the control gear locked down behind secure lines; we'd either end up loosing one like that rogue mechanical Jaws that swam away or they'd be too easy to pick up and re-purpose. This way the Kinect is in the field and the XBox (and game discs) are still safe at home.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 26 2014, @08:04AM
No wonder if comes from the Department of War. /sarcasm
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 26 2014, @12:12PM
Must be true if they say so!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 26 2014, @12:25PM
the new smart rifles are starting to make a lot more sense.