Meet Spot.....

                                                        

                                                                                         Watch and be amazed         
         

Robots are cool. A company in the US, Boston Dynamics, have been developing highly sophisticated robots for a while now. Check out the video above to see how versatile, agile and responsive their latest robot, ‘Spot the Dog’ can be. As you can see it can travel at jog speed, navigate over difficult ground and climb stairs. It is unperturbed by being kicked and is remarkably resilient. The project was funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and ostensibly designed to carry payloads into difficult areas. This would include areas hard to reach by wheeled or even tracked vehicles, or regions deemed too dangerous for humans, such as disaster or war zones. I suspect there may be a hidden agenda here. It doesn't take a great stretch of the imagination, or modification of ‘Spot’, to produce a weapon of war. Apply a few sheets of armour and a machine gun and you have a hardy ‘Dog of War’. I’m sure the US military are well aware of Spots’ capabilities. Certainly, with the modern Western mindset of preserving life in war, this is understandable. Contrast this sentiment to the reality of war 100 years ago. Life was cheap in the First World War and generals sent their men into battle expecting huge causalities rates, rates which would horrify a modern general and perhaps more importantly, a modern society. Regardless, robots are still cool.

I think I will call my robot ferret, 'Shagger'