Military pushes for emergency robots as skeptics worry about lethal uses, Washington Post “Most of the [DARPA Robotics Challenge] entrants resemble humans, with two arms and two legs, and could be cast in Hollywood’s next futuristic blockbuster. But there is also “CHIMP,” developed by Carnegie Mellon University, a squat, long-armed machine that uses wheeled treads to get around. Another, named “RoboSimian,” is a four-legged “ape-like” creature developed by NASA that, […]

JPL’s RoboSimian “Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla., was the place to be late last month for an unusual two-day competition: the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials. But if you went expecting high-octane cars zooming around the track at blazing speed, you might have been disappointed. The 16 robots participating in the challenge moved more like the tortoise than the hare, as they performed such tasks as opening doors or climbing a […]