Robot technology sure has come a long way since those plastic toy’s that shot sparks out of their mouths that we use to play with as kids. The following are three videos from the interwebs displaying what happens as these androids cross the “Rise Of The Machines” threshold.

Our first entry from Japan is a bulky, human-shaped robot that can jump up to its feet from lying flat on its back, all Jackie Chan-style. Unlike Jackie, this robot hasn’t quite mastered the standing-up and kicking ass part, to which we should be thankful.

Are people with Ophidiophobia (the fear of snakes) equally afraid of robot snakes? Now is the best time to find out, since the Biorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University have developed just that: robot snakes! These wriggly guys can shimmy up walls, swim through water and even scale the inside of a drain pipe. The best part in the video comes when it climbs a dude’s leg!

Finally, as the creepiest of the creepiest, comes the BigDog developed by Boston Dynamics for the US Department of Defense. This four-legged robot is more of a mule then a dog, in both size and function, designed with the idea that it will help soldiers carry heavy loads over rough terrain. And rough terrain it can handle, indeed! Its advanced sensors help it stay upright under any condition, even when forcibly kicked in the side by someone in this demonstration. Skip to the middle of the video to see it slip and slide over a patch of ice, to which I could not stop laughing simply because it looks like a real animal! You almost feel bad for it as it struggles to regain its footing!

Via Gizmodo, Gizmodo, Gizmodo

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