Just an hour outside of Pyeongchang, scientists and students unleashed a small group of robot minions onto the slopes, much to the delight of the gathered populace. These bloodthirsty, unfeeling menaces may be able to turn a bit, but thankfully, they are horrible at skiing:
A Japanese game show recently tested out the “Why don’t you just play with a huge goalkeeper who can block the whole goal?” theory on Lionel Messi. He showed that, even if you get a nightmarish, house-sized Miitomo-looking demon to guard the goal, he’ll still score on you.
First things first. “HitchBOT,” for all practical purposes, was a garbage can with an iPhone in it. It could not walk or stand or fire lasers or open a can of beans. By what standard was this piece of useless shit a “robot” in the first place? The answer: a shabby standard. A Canadian one.
Prayers up for hitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot that aspired to see the entire country via the kindness of strangers and made it as far as Philadelphia before getting curbstomped. Thanks to surveillance footage, we know how hitchBOT ended up as a pile of limbs: a brief clip shows a man in what appears to be a Randall…
There are two things I dig about this video. The first is that cool-ass disguised robot camera that could have been an imperial drone on Hoth. The second is how bad these polar bears are at flirting.
OK, so after all the hype about the mind-controlled exoskeleton performing the first kick in the World Cup, it turned out to be kind of disappointing. (The opening ceremony broadcast only showed a few seconds of it, seen above.) But still, a paralyzed man controlling a robot suit with his mind kicked a soccer ball,…
In the coming robot war, the only advantage we humans will have against the machines is our irrationality. They won't expect us to smuggle the nuke into their underground server farm at the cost of our own lives. They won't expect us to throw paper again after throwing it three times in a row. That advantage has…
Our day in the sun is over, humanity. Someone in Japan—not even a group of mad scientists, but literally one Japanese man with a basement and time on his hands after being laid off—has taught his robot to perform on the horizontal bar.
Meet WildCat, the latest robotic creation from the species-betrayers at Boston Dynamics. WildCat can run 16 mph on flat surfaces, and although it hasn't yet acquired a taste for human blood, that will surely change in the near future.
Here's a comprehensive list of all the "athletic" robots that will one day hunt you for sport. [PopSci]
The robot army gets yet another foot soldier for its inevitable war against the humans. This little guy is the world's preeminent mechanical gymnast, and can execute a perfect quadruple backflip off the horizontal bar.
Japan—of course it's Japan, home of the Messi-stopping goalkeeper robot—has found a way to win all the Dave & Buster's tickets.
When the Robot War comes, there's a very good chance it will go to penalties. In that case, we will call on humanity's greatest goalscorer. But the machines have picked their champion: RoboKeeper. All hail RoboKeeper.
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…
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…
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,…
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…
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries.
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