Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: March 6, 2016

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REAL LIFE NEWS: NEW ATLAS ROBOT VIDEO – BUT IS IT ALL THAT IT SEEMS?

by Hazed

Boston Dynamics, the robotics firm now owned by Google, released a new video last week of the latest version of their Atlas humanoid robot. It was impressive stuff, showing the droid striding across rough terrain, remaining upright when prodded by a big stick, opening doors, moving boxes around and getting up again after falling over.

But before you bow down to our new robot overlords, it’s worth looking at the video with slightly sceptical eyes.

The first thing to remember is that this video is not intended to be a scientific report – it’s a PR video, designed to show the technology in its best light. As such, it’s obviously been edited to show the times when Atlas succeeded at its tasks. Who knows how many times it fell over when poked with a stick, dropped the box it was moving or failed to traverse the snowy terrain?

There’s a lot more discussion at the source link below about just what we are not seeing, as well as some interesting information about why building a robot that uses legs like a human is very difficult – but is also ultimately much more useful that one with wheels.

So robots like Atlas are not going to taking your job any time soon. Still, the progress made is significant.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2016/feb/25/how-real-is-that-atlas-robot-boston-dynamics-video

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