If you are interested in robots, you’ve probably heard about Big Dog.  I’m planning to dig up all of the videos related to this fascinating machine, its predecessors and progeny.  This video is a great place to start because it shows a fairly advanced prototype with annoying characteristics (i.e. that awful buzzing motor noise that makes you feel like you’re living too close to a motocross track), but also displays characteristics that are more stunningly lifelike than all of those bipedal machines and animatronics that are continually produced.  Particularly interesting is the part where it slips on the ice and manages to correct its posture; this is so organic that it feels more like a pratfall from a comedy than a robot demonstration.

Anyway, enough words, here’s the video: