New Humanoid

Under the misleading title 'South Korea claims world's smartest robot', this article describes a new humanoid 'network-based human-like robot'. I'm not sure what is human-like in having a brain communicate wirelessly with a body, but learning is a good thing to stress in developing humanoids, as is the easily scalable computational power of a backroom server.

I generally enjoy development of humanoids, because they can operate in our world more easily, but I do not like the legs, which are totally the wrong approach. There is no 'bounce' in the step that allows for a great deal of energy conservation and true running.

What is entirely missing is a large humanoid development platform for researchers. Robots like ASIMO prove their worth only in corporate branding, because you can't really control the robot as a robotics researcher would want. I wish these companies would learn something from open source software: letting a talented user peak under the hood will only make your product better.