Atlas, that cool bipedal robot from Boston Dynamics, has received a pretty significant upgrade. Most everything above the knees has been redesigned and improved, and it now has a battery pack to enable it to roam freely. It has also been equipped with rotating wrists to enable it to open doorknobs. This is all part of the Darpa Robotics Challenge, which regardless of intent seems to be making rapid progress towards creating a real-life Terminator. Cool but rapid advances in this area of technology can be scary if and when AI takes off. Read more at the Darpa link above, or over at TechCrunch.
AR Contact Lenses
Scientists have already managed to create contact lenses that contain a single LED, so it’s no surprise they’re working on increasing that resolution to a more usable level. Due to the obvious tactical advantage in a combat situation, it’s no surprised that DARPA is an active participant in such research, working with Washington-based iOptiks on just such a solution. Eventually, you can expect this to trickle down to the consumer level, which would allow for virtually seamless augmented reality integration into our lives. Until then, expect the AR experience to be first tackled through use of eye glasses such as these. The next decade is going to be exciting for AR, I can’t wait to see how this develops! Read more here.
(via Slashdot)