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iRobot Develops a Hyperelastic Morphing Robot
- futuremint 17y agoHoly Crap. Watching that thing move scared me. I don't know why, but I just envision a swarm of them inflating and deflating and rolling after me in the dark of the night...
- anigbrowl 17y agoYou will never leave the Village, number 6.
- jballanc 17y agoWatching this, I couldn't help but think that this is the video that human historians will dig up in an attempt to figure out why their distant ancestors thought it wise to develop the robots that would eventually enslave the entire race...or maybe it was just the music selection?
- donaq 17y agoIt's morphable, not sentient. Besides, rupturing the inflatable components will remove its morphing ability. Not exactly as resilient as T1000, wot? :p
- Devilboy 17y agoSkynet will work out the details
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- ivankirigin 17y agoWhy does every robot need to bring out the crazy in people that predicts some humananity-is-doomed scenerio? Such a tired idea
- DannoHung 17y agoBecause it is the classic science fiction story: Frankenstein.
- ivankirigin 17y agoscience fiction
- csbrooks 17y agoPerhaps a good time to note the number of concepts that made the crossover from science fiction to science reality?
- ivankirigin 17y agoThat some things in science fiction have come true is NOT a good reason to bring up a fucking robot apocalypse every time a robot is posted to hacker news. I pay attention to these things. It really is pretty much every time a robot is brought up that someone who thinks they are clever says "Terminator!" As was already pointed out here, this is so far from a sentient robot it isn't even funny. It is also really far from the T-1000. Really, really far. People, please learn a thing or two about robotics or AI before making such an infantile assertion. Did you ever think it is bad for society to be so wild? You know, the popular idea in media where science = mad lone wolf scientist? Robots are pretty much the coolest way to learn engineering, and I'm just sick of people who add nothing to the conversation.
- jballanc 17y agoI apologize if it wasn't clear. My comment was in no way intended to add a cliche to the noise so much as to comment on the music selection. Perhaps robotics researchers would be taken more seriously if they took themselves more seriously. For example, I've seen dozens of Asimo video clips. Asimo is magnitudes closer to being a sentient robot than this rubber ball thingy, but I've never seen an Asimo video clip that devolved into Hollywood style quick cuts with apocalyptic background music. So, I've never thought to make this sort of comment regarding Asimo.
- panic 17y agoIn the event that robots eventually enslave the entire race, I doubt there will be any video record. It'll all be on youtube, owned by — guess who — the machines.
- kwamenum86 17y agoIt was definitely the Apocalyptic machine-takeover music. On another note, what would a machine like this be useful for?
- rocketman 17y agoThat machine in the video is not what we would most likely implement. Imagine robots with articulations more fine than "motor1, turn 39 degrees clockwise. motor2, turn 68 degrees clockwise", etc. Possibly more compact robotic limbs that better replicate natural animal movement. More precision.
- johnnyb4 17y agoHaha wow, I thought I'd be the only one who had flashbacks to Terminator, but I guess am not alone.
- camccann 17y agoStrangely, during the development of the robot, several members of the team were plagued by persistent, unexplained nightmares. An official spokesman for iRobot attributed the nightmares to high stress and said that the affected researchers were recovering on vacation. Requests to contact the researchers were rebuffed and their current location is unknown. When approached for an interview, the project director gave only the cryptic statement, "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!" No firm date has been set for commercial release of products using this technology, a spokesman giving only a figurative release date of "when the stars are right". However, he assured us, that it would "definitely be... soon."
- jackcheng 17y agoReminds me of the work of Japanese artist Mio I-zawa, who makes things like "mechanical tumors" that grow in size based on your CPU load: http://www.pinktentacle.com/2009/09/mechanical-tumor-external-heart-elastic-cell/ http://www.pinktentacle.com/2009/09/mechanical-tumor-externa...