An Inside Look At The Impending Flying Robot Apocalypse (And How To…

The Consumer Electronics Show, held in Vegas every year during the second-ish week in January, is an odd duck. Everyone is desperate to talk to you and show you things and shake your hand and trample you on the show floor and so forth. But (and this is my third time being here) there's often little that truly grabs…

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Among About A Billion Candidates, Cleatus, The Dancing Animatronic NFL …

When the mascots of corporations send out painfully canned condolences—our thoughts and prayers, seriously, from this ridiculously stupid dancing robot—people always say, "Oh man, I pity the poor intern that had to write that B.S." I've got news for you: It probably wasn't an intern. It was probably a well-compensated…

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The U.S. Military Has Built A Robot That Runs Faster Than Usain Bolt

Fifty years from now, let's not pretend we didn't see the warning signs. They were there the whole time. Hell, this post is a warning sign. DARPA, the wing of the Department of Defense that makes all the coolest shit everyday people don't usually get to see, has released this video of Cheetah, a four-legged,…

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Machines Don't Fall Down Dead: How Rock'em Sock'em Robots Came To Be

Before Mortal Kombat arrived to satisfy my prepubescent need for button mashing, there was Rock'em Sock'em Robots, the first game I ever played where the objective was decapitation. Here's how it worked: You controlled one of two punching plastic androids—the Red Rocker or the Blue Bomber—by pushing down on two levers…

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Basketball Training Of The Future Is Terrifying And Nauseating

Our French tipster Antoine sent this in with the subject line "ro basketball team training with robots," perhaps because he's aware of our constant fear of the Robot Uprising. But the Futuroscope that helped Poitiers Basket 86 develop their spatial recognition or some such nonsense doesn't inspire the same kind of…

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A Robot Failed at Throwing the First Pitch at a Major League Baseball…

One of my life goals is to throw the first pitch at a Dodgers baseball game. I daydream about it regularly, actually. But the nerves! What if I miss the catcher or, gasp, one-bounce it across home plate? I don't think I could go home after that.

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