[Art]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine then, how much a movie is worth with it's many pictures / frames!

[Freddy]

Good thought. But often I find movies don't live up to the books. Mainly with a book a lot is left to the imagination, which can be more powerful than the silver screen. Just my thoughts.

[Carl2]

  Very good vid, but last I knew we still do not have a robot that can walk so I just did a search. Boston Dynamics has a robot that managed to walk over a rough terrain, lots of heavy cables, no head, must cost a fortune.  We do have cars that can park themselves, besides the driverless cars that go from A to B I've heard talk that in the near future we will have driverless cars. All in all I think we are moving in the right direction and this in the future for us.  I did notice that the vid mentions putting intelligence into the robot, getting the computer to know what they need to know about the real world, learning through experience.  Learning from experience is something I had heard in the past and created a stumbling block in trying to get a chat bot to learn. 
Carl2

[Ultron]

Maybe the 'learning through experience' method doesn't work as well because we can't figure out how WE learn and think. The key definitely lies in ourselves.

Regarding walkers, the walking dogs walk very impressively and not to mention their ability to retain their balance (and quickly too). Did I also mention that they are cord-less, too?

[Art]

Ever watch the Atlas video of a robotic walking character with legs, hips, torso and even arms, but no head?
It's done this way for a reason. To make sure the walking, locomotion, stride / gait, is fluid and natural.  Ever see the same robot when it is in a full jumpsuit like they said, "Testing" various containment suits.
They could have had people do jumping jacks and squats in the suits. There would have been no need to build a sophisticated robot costing thousands of dollars to do what a couple of low ranking military recruits could easily have done.

There's way more than meets the eye here...

Build a head for it, equip it with a variety of sensors, (eyes, microphone ears, maybe even an olfactory sensor to detect chemicals, smoke, burning, etc.). Lastly, but not leastly...give it a brain / advanced CPU with which it can be programmed, take and act out orders, engage an enemy or other hostile entity and you now have a very formidable fighting machine.

When they get the battery / electrical requirements where they want, it could conceivably be sent out on short missions. If serious enough, complete the mission, and sacrifice with a self destruct device on board. Nothing is outside the realm of possibility when talking advanced AI coupled with military applications or the potential for them.

Just a thought. I just happened to find this video and thought it might serve to illustrate:
First was Petman:

Then:

and this one:

Use your imagination....

[Ultron]

I can see your point, Art. I have already seen these videos and have been following DARPA's and other similar robotics projects for quite a while and they have made some interesting robots, but don't you think that with all those resources you could make something much better?

Obviously the main challenge is battery life, so all these prototypes are aimed at perfecting the energy efficiency. I do not see any A.I. in there, or potential for one, since the design is aiming to be more controller-friendly (thus the weird should positioning on Atlas).

I believe that these projects, unlike other military projects in the past, may not be of too much us for the scientific fields of study. While certainly an improvement in the direction of mobility and user-controlled machines, there really isn't new technologies developed - it is just a more efficient use of existing technologies. To be impressed I would at least like to see a new battery type (I'd enjoy being able to fly quadcopters for a few hours - 15-30 minutes just ain't cutting it).

And regarding the intelligence aspect - ever thought of all the things we could learn from exploring a new 'alien' civilization? What we could learn from their way of thinking? This is why we want artificial intelligence. But it needs a body, and it needs to be independent. DARPAs projects aim at creating modern weapons and not intelligence - this is where we have the upper hand

[Art]

I agree about the battery thing too! 8-10 minutes on my small quad is not acceptable.

My scratch built Tri-Copter is nicely tuned and it only gets about 12 - 15 minutes, depending on how hard I push it.

I do have a hands free device in my car (against the law to use a hand held device or text while driving in my state). The device has a battery that gets about 14 hours of continuous use or 40 days of Standby time! That's a pretty good battery.

My Tablet (with removable keyboard) gets about 15 hours of use per charge) - 10 for tablet and 5 for keyboard which has a chargeable battery inside.

The products are getting better but something tells me that there is simply a better technology out there that we're overlooking. We'll find it soon!
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Back to the robot thing. What if they're just working on the mobility portion and they already HAVE the AI available for it.

We've built a great motor, now let's design a cool car body for it! Don't know and can't say at this point. Just conjecture for now.

[Ultron]

Hmm, I guess you are right. It's not like they give everything out to the public in 2 videos! I guess my statements refer to what is 'publicly' available.

Regarding RC copters - I saw a DIY fella run his for 90 minutes! But as you would imagine, it had very light Li-Po batteries (I think it was about 6-8k mAh but I might be way off) and (aside from the motors) was fully carbon. So it probably weighed about 500-600g (again, might be way off but it was less then 1kg). The downside is that it won't run (or even be able to carry) a camera and other accessories.

I think he later had another version that ran 2hrs! No camera but still impressive. I believe this was the guy: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/my-97minute-06second-record-quadcopter-flight

I also found this however I see no evidence: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/quad-copter-flying-for-4-8-hours

Also, those plane-like RCs fly a lot longer due to aerodynamics if you are interested...

P.S. If anyone else wishes to carry on with this DIY RC vehicle discussion he should start a topic and we'll hop in.

P.P.S. Imagine Aerogel-frame quadcopters? O.O

[Art]

Nice but like one of the other comments, I would almost have to call BS on this claim.

There's simply no way (using existing tech.) one can coax that kind of performance from this.

I would definitely have to see this to believe it. Not necessarily calling anyone a liar (because that's just too rude and unproven). But post a demo preferably a time lapse showing the flight and time together without panning away.

Besides, I'm not out to set any records, I'm out to have fun on my weekends with some others from our flying club! (once the weather gets nicer).

[Ultron]

Yes I agree, definitely need a new battery type or graphene-based motors (which btw should be very light - the motors are the heaviest component).

I am also not looking to set records, but I would like to have a longer flight and also be able to record footage.