boston

Laugh while you can at this BigDog robot video

Robots will play a greater role in fighting wars in the future, and BigDog wants a piece of that action.

BigDog is both the silliest and scariest military robot out there. The recent video below from creator Boston Dynamics provides a retrospective on the DARPA-funded quadruped, which is designed as a load-carrying mule for soldiers.

The vid shows six years of BigDog evolution from 2004 through 2010. The 240-pound, all-terrain cyber-canine can tackle slopes up to 35 degrees, rubble, snow, mud, and water, and can carry a 340-pound load. That's handy since the average soldier load has increased dramatically in recent years.

You can't hear it in the video, but it sounds like a go-kart because it runs on a one-cylinder Leopard go-kart engine.

Its sensors include stereo vision, GPS, a gyroscope, and LIDAR--you can kick it and it'll keep on trucking. The machine once set a record for traveling 12.8 miles without stopping or refueling. It can run at speeds up to 4 mph.

No doubt BigDog is impressive, even awesome in its relentlessness, but also ridiculous. Boston Dynamics once had fun "weaponizing" the brute, perhaps inspired by that jocular BigDog Beta video by a pair of spandex-clad parodists.

One serious follow-up to BigDog is the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), also designed to lighten the load for dismounted troops.

"That machine will carry 400 pounds of payload on 20-mile missions in rough terrain, where wheeled vehicles can't go," says Marc Raibert of Boston Dynamics. "We have a lab prototype that we will show soon, and expect the first field prototype ready in summer 2012."

And since Boston Dynamics is working on other animal robots for the military that could conceivably run as fast as 70 mph, it's hard not to wonder whether BigDog could have the last laugh and the joke will be on us. … Read more

Boston Power moves ahead by moving to China

Battery maker Boston Power is shifting its operations to China to capitalize on the electric-vehicle market.

The Westborough, Mass.-based company today announced that it has raised $125 million from Chinese venture capital firm GSR Ventures as part of an expansion into China. In addition to the private equity, the company is receiving grants, low-interest loans, and other incentives from the Chinese government, which will lead to construction of a large-scale battery manufacturing plant.

By the end of next year, the 400-megawatt-hour-per-year plant will be capable of making enough lithium ion batteries for about 10,000 all-electric cars a year, … Read more

Boston Acoustics SoundWare speaker quick take

CNET reviewed the Boston Acoustics SoundWare speakers as part of the SoundWare XS 5.1 speaker system. While we didn't directly compare the SoundWare speakers to other speakers sold individually, the full 5.1 system sounded better than we expected, given their minuscule size. Also note that these speakers can be purchased individually to expand the SoundWare SX 5.1 system to a 7.1 system.

For more information on the Boston Acoustics SoundWare speakers, read CNET's full review of the Boston Acoustics SoundWare XS 5.1.

Three awesome-sounding under-$500 home theater speaker systems

How much room-shaking home theater power can you expect five minispeakers and a pipsqueak subwoofer to deliver? Technological advances have certainly changed my thinking on this matter, but my listening tests proved speaker size still matters when I compared the Boston Acoustics SoundWare XS 5.1, Energy Take Classic 5.1, and Pioneer SP-PK21BS subwoofer-satellite packages.

The Boston SoundWare XS cube satellites are incredibly tiny, just 4.43 inches wide, 4.25 inches high, and 4.43 deep. Each one weighs just 1 pound. The speaker's rear is faceted, so instead of being a six-sided cube, the SoundWare XS … Read more

Boston Acoustics SoundWare XS 5.1 review: Ultrasmall surround sound for $500

If you like to flaunt your home audio system, you're probably not going to buy the Boston SoundWare XS 5.1 speaker system. That's OK; it's not made for you. But lots of people who don't make home theater their hobby still appreciate a true surround-sound experience, and Boston's system delivers that at an incredible size and price. The SoundWare XS 5.1 sounds surprisingly good, and we say surprising because its five satellite speakers feel only a little larger than a baseball in your hand. Combined with its compact 100-watt subwoofer, it's one … Read more

The 404 841: Where we take our show in vein (podcast)

All this time we thought Justin Yu was in California--but no, in fact, he was up in Vancouver helping destroy the town after the Canucks' embarrassing loss to the Boston Bruins last night for the 2011 Stanley Cup.

Chaos is certainly in the air on The 404 today as the show welcomes longtime friends Allie and Kenley to the program. The gang discusses last night's anarchy in Canada and whether it was all a conspiracy conducted by some rogue Canadian travel agency.

Beyond riots, we'll take a look at Robin Williams' new Nintendo commercial, Steve Jobs' autobiographical comic book, and Samuel L. Jackson's foray into the world of audiobooks.

The 404 Digest for Episode 841

Shocking photos from last night's riot in Vancouver Samuel L. Jackson tells us all to "Go the F--- to Sleep" Robin Williams really loves Nintendo Steve Jobs the comic book

Episode 841 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Boston's wind site to test giant turbine blades

Boston is now home to the world's largest commercial wind-blade testing site, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Wind Technology Testing Center officially opened yesterday inside what looks like a massive airplane hangar in Boston's port.

The seemingly minor ceremonial event is actually quite significant for the U.S. wind industry and could improve the timeline for wind turbine technology development in the U.S.

In the past, large-scale wind blades under development in the U.S. had to be shipped out of the country for testing, usually to Europe, because the U.S. had … Read more

Boston Acoustics reinvents the budget audiophile speaker

In the early 1980s the Boston Acoustics A 40 and A 60 were the go-to speakers for audiophiles on a tight budget. They were hugely popular, and there are still vast numbers of them in circulation.

Well, the smart folks at Boston Acoustics have brought the A Series back, but the new speakers don't share any technology with the original models. The engineers have learned a lot over the decades, and that was immediately obvious when I heard some of the new A Series speakers earlier this week.

The little bookshelf model, the A 26 ($200 each), was sounding a lot bigger than I would have thought possible. For a speaker that measures just 13 inches by 8.25 inches by 10.5 inches, bass was punchy and deep, dynamics were wide open, and the treble was clear. Female vocals sounded especially natural.

These speakers don't need the assistance of a subwoofer to sound full and rich, so they would be a great fit for two-channel home theaters or hi-fi use. I also heard the A 360 towers ($400 each), which produced more and deeper bass, and played louder, but the same sound signature was evident over both speakers. … Read more

Military commissions cheetah, humanoid robots

Don't believe in Skynet? Well, the U.S. military has reportedly commissioned the production of bipedal soldiers and quadruped robots that can outrun human beings.

Boston Dynamics, known for its BigDog canine bot, is working to develop a humanoid robot called Atlas and an animal-like running robot called Cheetah. The robo-cat is due to arrive in 20 months.

The company's efforts are part of multimillion-dollar contracts with DARPA over a four-year period, according to a Boston Herald report.

Initially, Cheetah is supposed to achieve speeds of up to 30 mph. Presumably it will be a lot stealthier than the noisy BigDog, seen in the vid below. No word yet on whether it will fold into a cassette tape like the old-school Decepticon Ravage of Transformers fame.

"There's no fundamental reason why it can't go as fast as the animals (60 to 70 mph), but it will take a while to get there," Boston Dynamics President Marc Raibert was quoted as saying in Boston Herald report. … Read more