Robopocalypse

Run all you want, I'll be right behind youHow nice.  According to Engaget, iRobot has made the bold claim that their Warrior bot is more human than Honda's well-known humanoid ASIMO.  iRobot says their little hunter-killer

can take a 10-foot drop onto concrete, drive 20 miles an hour, drive up stairs without stopping at full speed, carry 200 pounds of payload and has, maybe, five motors," which means it can "go nearly everywhere a human can.

Believe it or not, they're proud of this.

We are obviously teaching out students the wrong things. Take this model, built by a student for his senior project:

I was talking to my boss the other day about blogging. He's extremely tech-savvy, and the conversation really was related to work. I mentioned the kinds of things I tend to blog about, and he immediately said "You've seen Big Dog, right?" I hadn't, so he felt the need to enlighten me. And by enlighten, I mean terrify me within an inch of wetting myself and running screaming like a little girl. Big Dog is easily one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. It's basically a quadruped robot designed to carry loads of up to 340 pounds across any kind of terrain to go anywhere a human or animal can go. Here we see scientists throwing away the concept of a bipedal robot, which is just flat stupid, and going for a much more stable design, with legs designed just like those of a real quadruped. This gives it unprecedented stability, and the lack of wheels or treads means it can really cross just about any terrain you can imagine. Here are just a few of it's capabilities, according to its designers, Boston Dynamics:

In separate trials, BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.

Impressive, but it probably doesn't quite scream DOOM by itself. So check out the video:

When author Adam P. Knave announced he was going to do a blog tour to promote his book of short stories, CRAZY LITTLE THINGS, I got excited.  I knew from reading his blog for some time that this was a man eminently qualified to speak to topics near and dear to my heart, namely Robopocalypse and Zombiegeddon.  Some of the stories in his new book, in fact, touch on these topics.