Robot dog vs. real dog is the ultimate canine showdown
They say the dog is a man's best friend. Does that go for robot dogs as well? Or will they turn on their human masters, ushering in a new age of darkness for humanity?
None of those questions are answered in the video below, but we do get to see how one real, flesh-and-bone dog gets along with his robotic cousin. The answer: Not so great.
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A video, posted on YouTube on Saturday, features Boston Dynamics' robotic dog Spot -- the same one we saw being abused by an evil human earlier this month. In it, we see Spot goofing around with a dog that appears to be Android co-founder (and former head of Google's robotic program) Andy Rubin's dog Cosmo.
Nothing dramatic happens in the video, which was posted on Saturday, but it's fun to see a real, live dog reacting to Spot's eerily realistic dog movements. In a nutshell, it's freaking him out.
The same YouTube user, Steve Jurvetson, who is a partner at VC firm DFJ, posted another video of Spot on Sunday. In that video, we see the robo-dog get up and cheerily walk away after lying down sideways on the street. Spot looks perfectly capable of walking over curbs and rougher terrains, and we also get to see it moving in several different ways: in one mode of operation, its legs are totally out of phase; in another, they're moving in unison.
The 160-pound Spot -- one of Boston Dynamics' amazing array of robots -- has a head-mounted camera helping it overcome obstacles, and is surprisingly stable: it can stay upright even when kicked.
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Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
