Gadgetory

you can take the animal out of the party but you can't take the party out of this animal the spot mini robot has learned to do a pretty damn good running man but that's not the most impressive recent revelation from Boston Dynamics welcome to what the future on today's show humanoid robots take a giant literal leap forward a new technique to 3d print human body parts and one of the most disturbing phone attachments I've ever seen if previous videos of Atlas's workout regimen have made you uneasy you may want to look away yes the humanoid robot by Boston Dynamics has graduated from jogging to full-blown parkour now to be fair the video posted on the company's YouTube channel is only 29 seconds we don't know how many attempts this took Boston Dynamics didn't say much about it only that those steps are about 16 inches high and that Atlas uses its whole body to generate enough energy and strength to jump without breaking its pace we've already seen Atlas out for a jog and this awesome backflip but this latest demonstration is definitely the most impressive yet of the robots agility so you can cue the YouTube comments warning of a dystopian future ruled by our robot overlords moving on from building humanoids to printing them engineers of the University of Utah have developed a technique to 3d print human tissue that means doctors could print replacement tissue for a patient with a damaged ligament or tendon without harvesting tissue from other parts of the body and needing additional surgeries the process involves taking stem cells from the patient's own body fat and printing them on a layer of hydrogel the tendon or ligament would then grow in vitro before being implanted in the patient's body the team genetically modified these printed cells to glow fluorescence so we could actually see what they look like right now this is designed for ligaments tendons and spinal disks but scientists say it could be applied to any type of tissue even printing entire organs here's a body part I wish didn't exist this is mobile in the phone attachment of your nightmares it comes to us by French engineering school telecom Paris Tech because apparently your phone needs a finger it connects by USB from there how you finger your phone is up to you among other functions like drawing out texts and acting as a kickstand it's really designed to be an extension of the things your phone already does so imagine bei text you a smiling emoji the finger can let you know by gently stroking your wrist or if you just can't be bothered to walk across the room to get your phone Moby Lim has you covered now if that's not creepy enough for you look at these skins so you can pretend it's an actual human finger or a fuzzy cattail now if your own fingers are already reaching for your wallet this is just a research project you can't buy it but do we really want to live in a world where our phones can give us the finger I'm guessing some of you do ok James so Dec asked us on Facebook if atlas can clean his yard fair question James coincidentally on the same day Boston Dynamics showed us parkour Atlas it posted this video of its spot robot surveying construction sites in Japan now this is not to be confused with spot mini which we saw shaking it earlier in the show well it's not cleaning a yard this is a great example of how robots like spot and Atlas are starting to perform meaningful tasks in the real world by the way Boston Dynamics says its spot line will go on sale next year all right what made you say WTF let us know in the comments that's going to do it for this week I'm Mandy Altman thanks for watching what the future