I agree about the importance of funding. But all the dollars in the world won't replace ingenuity and creativity. That's one of the reasons why you get the funding.
Honda has a pretty nice demo at Disneyland. I was in Anaheim for a conference and saw the show with their robot Asimo. The bipedal robot will walk up stairs and also stand on one leg to kick a ball.
I see. Funding was their advantage. It is truly the case in ever facet of business. The more money one has, the more impact they will make.
To this day, I have yet to see someone become the next big whatever without financial backing. Kickstarter is definitely allowing those who could not finally make progress.
Same goes for robotics apparently. Some people are making weak example of robotics, while others are mimicking life.
Boston Dynamics does indeed deserve their excellent rep. But the answers to why are more mundane: a) They had military funding way before most other robot companies, and b) they had the foresight to start working on biomimicry in robotics before anyone else. They've also been really good at operating in stealth mode under the radar.
Boston Dynamics certainly has excelled past the competition. It’s truly a night and day comparison. I should investigate how they got that this point more. “Ancient Aliens” perhaps?
C
Thanks for the video Cabe. I just spent the last 30 minutes perusing the Boston Dynamics website. Unbelieveable! It's here, now. NOW watching the movie "iRobot" doesn't seem so much like fantasy as it does a peek into the future.
These guys should take some cues from Boston Dynamic's PETMAN. After watching the PETMAN video you will realize, someday that thing will be busting down doors for the U S of A.
I'm really impressed by the efforts made to give this robot a gait that closely matches actual human movement. I also appreciate the toe and heel strike motion of this robot as shown in the video.
A new battery design, which replaces lithium with abundant and low-cost elemental sulfur, is still in its nascent stages but shows real promise for giving batteries more energy potential.
PTC will offer a virtual desktop environment for its Creo product design applications, potentially freeing engineers to run them from remote desktops on a variety of operating systems and mobile devices.
The push to achieving more intelligent, integrated manufacturing is putting a strong focus on networking and connectivity as key enabling technologies.
Now that solar and wind harvesting technologies are a thriving market, researchers are seeking other environmentally related energy sources for which they can create harvesting devices.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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