Technology
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Welcome to 2017: A billionaire space-tycoon with an army of drones on hand has been spotted stomping around in a super-sized mechanical robot in front of a crowd of start-up entrepreneurs, who tweeted the event.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and founder of aerospace venture Blue Origin, tweeted a photo of himself in the 4-meter-tall (13-foot) robot at the MARS (Machine learning, home Automation, Robotics and Space exploration) conference. Bloomberg describes this event as a “secret” and “invitation-only” robotics event at a resort in Palm Springs, sprinkled with a host of famous faces and tech giants. Other than that, not much information about the event is around for mere mortals.
“Why do I feel so much like Sigourney Weaver?” he joked to the audience, making a reference to a robot featured in the film Aliens.
This model of robot, dubbed Method-2, first came to light at the beginning of this year, after footage spread of it moving around its South Korean design lab. Needless to say, not everyone was totally convinced the video was the real deal, with some suspecting it could be viral advertising.
Now those fears can be put to rest, at least a little bit. Its chief designer, Vitaly Bulgarov, posted on Facebook saying: “Super cool to see Jeff Bezos trying out our mech at Amazon’s MARS conference in Palm Springs this weekend!!”
It's still unclear how practical the robot is. As you can see from the images and video, it still relies on two chain hoists to keep it upright and it doesn't appear to be able to walk completely unaided. Nevertheless, few would disagree that this humanoid contraption at least looks extremely impressive.
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