Remember Big Dog? Well now its developers are introducing a quieter, bipedal version they’re calling Petman. Boston Dynamics says Petman will be used to test military clothing while “walking, crawling and doing a variety of suit-stressing calisthenics during exposure to chemical warfare agents.” Petman can also mimic human physiology by sweating inside the clothing if the test were to call for it. And remember how Big Dog couldn’t be pushed over? Well, neither can this two legged version. Only a year and a half between the two prototype releases…wow…quite remarkable. What are we gonna see by spring 2011?

Via Wired

Revealed in a recent Army request to the Department of Defense, a search appears to be underway for a good team to create a next-generation sensor package to enable a robot, or teams of robots, to detect unruly humans. Or as the Army puts it:

Develop a software and sensor package to enable a team of robots to search for and detect human presence in an indoor environment.

As robotics engineers get more and more worried that their creations will become tomorrow’s oppressive machines, objections are popping up from robo-ethicists and robotics engineers around the net.

I for one am interested to see how much closer our lives will be like living in an episode of Half-Life 2.

Boston Dynamics, the DARPA backed research agency, specializing in developing combat-ready robotics and simulations machines, have released a new video of their “war mule” robot, named Big Dog. Resembling our favorite four-legged friend, Big Dog is run by a gasoline-powered engine (hence the noise), trots at 3.3 mph and can carry a load of up to 120lbs, if not more. Scary, spooky and fascinating all at one time.

Ok, it’s not the *only* thing I want for Christmas (there’s also this, this and this on my list), but damn if this isn’t in my top-5! The Donut Robot 42 belongs to the very lucky Derrick (adw3345) who documented his wonderful robot sidekick on his LiveJournal, teaching us some amazing facts on his vintage robot, such as it’s ability to make 384 donuts per hour, automatically. That’s about 4 more than I need! Per hour.

Read more: Get to know the Donut Robot 42

Way to go South Korea trying to advance humanity by giving us robotic indentured servants! After announcing in January their intent to begin testing in-home (and school) robotic servants, technicians in South Korea are now begining rollout on the test. From September to December 2006, South Korea plans to test 1,000 mobile-phone controlled robots through homes and kindergartens around the country. Used primarily for cleaning rooms, providing companionship to children(!), and taking care of pets left home alone, all of the robots will be connected via a centralized network, which hopefully give us all a front-row seat into the robotic uprising which would occur shortly after the system goes live. I’ve been unable to find any information on whether they will adhere to Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics and no word on whether any of them will be named Robbie.

[South Korea testing robots in homes]