Earlier this week, Boston Dynamics unveiled a new version of its SpotMini robot dog. The brief teaser was impressive, but it was nothing compared to the video the robotics company released today. We have seen the Atlas bipedal robot before, and it has always been exciting, but now the bot has some slick new paneling and apparently some new hardware and/or software because we have never seen it move like this.
After adroitly jumping over some obstacle boxes, the humanoid robot leaps up onto a box that looks to be about 3 feet tall. Then it does a 180 degree spin, plants the landing, and finally proceeds to do a backflip off the platform and land on a gymnastics mat. 10 out of 10.
There video description only reads, "What have you been up to lately, Atlas?"
Given Boston Dynamics' teaser video earlier this week, combined with today's reveal, we expect the robot builder may soon announce what they have been up to since being sold by Google to Japanese technology firm SoftBank. Obviously the New England bot maker hasn't missed a stride.
Jay Bennett is the associate editor of PopularMechanics.com. He has also written for Smithsonian, Popular Science and Outside Magazine.
