Robo-Dogs of War

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Warning: US Military Plans to Unleash Creepy BigDog Mule Bots, Under "The ROBODOC" Codename - The robotic dog concept is said to be completed in 2008



Oh my God! They chopped AT-AT! Hold your Aibo's puppies and run! In case you're wondering who AT-AT is, this means you're not real Star Wars fans. Anyway, I am talking about the All Terrain Armored Transport, a four legged transport and combat vehicle used by the imperial ground forces. They stand 15 meters tall, they are extremely intimidating and used mostly for their psychological effects rather than for their tactics.

Generally speaking, a robot dog refers to a cute robot in the shape of a puppy that can sing, dance, or do other entertainment tricks to amuse you and your family. But, this, this gives me the creeps. And the fact that it might actually be used someday is even creepier. This is a robotic pack mule that is the proudly winner of a 10 million bucks prize. In case you're wondering what the hell I’m talking about here, then here it comes. The Pentagon decided to place the money in a funding for this wacky sadistic project. BigDog is described by its developers Boston Dynamics as "the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth".

The robot was developed three year ago in some secret laboratories from area 51(just kidding about the area 51 stuff!) by one probably enraged Star Wars fan. The robot was first introduced to the people in 2004 by a journalist named Noah Shachtman, "pour les connoisseurs", he is the editor of the "Wired" famous publication, as well as the Danger's Room blog owner.

The manufacturers designed the metallic creature to carry equipment for soldiers. The petrol-engined quadruped is said to be capable of running and jumping with its load, to negotiate obstacles up to a meter high and two meters wide.

According to Noah Shachtman's blog, Dr. Richard Satava, the brain behind the ROBODOC concept has been pushing the Defense Department to fund his systems for his crazy robotically controlled rooms. But the first funding was given to him several years later. The first one was of 1.5 million to continue his research on the Robo-Dog concept, which the mad scientist later developed into a bigger robot, as seen in videos posted on the Internet.

As seen from a video posted on Wired (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2004/01/61808), the BigDog is pretty noisy and capable of naturalistic movement that scares me. Just like somebody said, they slaughtered AT-TA!

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Warning-US-Military-Plans-To-Unleash-Creepy-BigDog-Mule-Bots-Under-The-ROBODOC-Codename-60384.shtml

[Jed Dilligan]

1. The AT-AT is one of the most laughable pieces of

military technology ever envisioned.

You can fly through space and you design a war machine that WALKS?

Sadly, this is an accurate reflection of how the military mind often works.

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2. walks and JUMPS!

DARPA: The Next Generation

[Mist]

3. Don't worry! Remember how those desert 'bots in Star Wars were taken down by

"lassoing" them?

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4. hee hee

I always thought that was pretty funny

[bicentennial_baby]

5. My friend works at one of the companies working on this...

He says it's very creepy.

[mr_hat]

6. AT-AT drools.