Update, 2/27/17: Nearly a month after the first footage of the bot was leaked online, Boston Dynamics has finally released an official video of Handle — its new self-balancing, wheel-footed robot.
When you think of Boston Dynamics, you probably think about the company’s freakish four-legged robots that walk and crawl their way over obstacles. But if you thought it couldn’t get any crazier than that, just check out the company’s latest creation: an experimental wheeled robot that one team member described as being “potentially nightmare-inducing.”
In a recent presentation, Boston Dynamics showcased its first-ever wheeled robot along with a preview of its new and improved SpotMini robot. While the SpotMini wowed the crowd with its skills in doing the dishes and delivering drinks, it was the wheeled robot named “Handle” that left everyone in awe. Why was it given the name Handle? Because someday it will be given the ability to handle objects, a feature set that makes the robot even cooler and more terrifying to consider.
Combining wheels with legs and a stabilization system, the Handle looks like the monstrous offspring of a robot and a Segway. According to Boston Dynamics, it’s actually much more efficient than its legged counterparts. The robot is capable of carrying a heavier load on a small footprint, and is expected to be less expensive to build than the company’s humanoid or legged robots. Not only can the Handle maneuver smoothly across the floor, but it also can roll down hills and can even jump over hurdles without missing a beat.
Besides the Handle, Boston Dynamics also showcased a variety legged robots that improve upon its current designs. The new SpotMini, for example, is equipped with a head stabilization feature that allows it to hold its head still while the rest of its body moves. It’s so smooth that the robot can hold a glass of wine and move around without spilling it. On the humanoid side, Boston Dynamics also improved its bipedal humanoid robots, showing off a second-generation Atlas robot that uses its whole body to complete common warehouse tasks like lifting boxes.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.