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Source: Geekologie
In “dammit, Japan” news, comes a humanoid robot that can mimic the freestyle, backstroke and breast-stroke swimming styles of a human. Why? Presumably so when the terrestrial robots herd us all into the water, there will already be some aquatic ones there ready to drown us. Wonderful news, really. The robots can now jump 30 feet to rooftops, run, walk up stairs, command an army of small, intelligent drones, robotic dogs to carry equipment for them, and cheetah-like machines that chase us. Welcome to Skynet…
In its primitive prototype form, Tokyo Institute of Technology’s humanoid swimming robot can perform a freestyle crawl at 0.64 meters per second and can also do the backstroke and butterfly.Aside from its researcher’s ambitions of deploying it to rescue drowning victims one day, the robot’s more practical use would be for analyzing how people swim to look for patterns that can help improve a swimmer’s technique.
Okay, using the thing to improve a swimmer’s technique? MAYBE. But “ambitions of deploying it to rescue drowning victims?” Get real. Why do you need a robot that looks and swims like a human to rescue drowning victims when you could use a MOTORIZED JETSKI WITH A HYDRAULIC LIFT? I’m not even convinced these researchers have their science-ing licenses. “No such thing.” Well, there should be!
Hit the jump for a video demo.
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2012-08-05 01:45:22
Source: http://www.truthistreason.net/creepy-humanoid-robot-3726-now-they-can-swim