New Atlas robot is our best frenemy forever (Tomorrow Daily)

[MUSIC] Greetings, citizens of the Internet. Welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best geek talk show in the universe. I'm Ashley Esqueda. And I'm Jeff Cannata and it is time for headlines. It might be time, in fact To start getting ready for the robo-pocalypse. Boy, get scared [LAUGH]. Because the folks at Boston Dynamics have upgraded their Atlas Robot. This video has been all over the internet today, and for good reason. We are no exception to that, we are going to show you this video. Because the original Atlas Was 6 feet tall. Very loud and weighed 330 pounds. But this robot, 5 foot 9, 180 pounds untethered and very quiet. Some might say too quiet. It's also really agile, recovering from a variety of balance issues as it walks through snow. And gets knocked down by a super mean robotisis with a hockey stick. Look at this guy Stereo sensors and LIDAR help it navigate and recognize objects with QR codes on them, like the box in this video. This is it. This is it, Ashley, this is the beginning, this is how we tick them off and, stop. Don't. You're making me angry! I'm trying to push you. Do you have a box I could knock out of your hands? It's kind of sad looking at his little Listen guys I'm on the side of the rope spot in this video I get very upset seeing that evil roboticists poke him with a stick. Yeah. Put him in the box two minutes. High kicking. High kicking. High kicking I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Alright well from robots that might be terrifying or exciting if you're me We gotta talk about space travel, specifically laser space travel. One of the problems with space exploration is everything is really far away. But this concept from cosmologist Philip Lubin might speed things up. So right now scientists can move particles at almost the speed of light but scaling that up is an issue because of weight. So Luben says recent breakthroughs in laser tech means we could launch a ten kilometer by ten kilometer laser array up into Earth's orbit and then theoretically propel a small probe up to 26% of the speed of light. That would mean getting a one gram probe to Mars in just about a half an hour And arriving in Alpha Centauri, our nearest star system in about 15 to 16 years. The one problem that exists with this particular technology is breaking. They actually have no way to slow down something once it's moving that fast. So, it's kinda like that kid in Mighty Ducks Too. Yeah, I think he was going about 26% of the speed of light, too. I think so. It's not [UNKNOWN]. 26% of the speed of light, by the way, is extraordinarily fast. We've never made anything go that fast and, as you said, it's a very, very tiny, very light thing. So it's not human beings that could do this. Yeah. Well, they can do just under the speed of light with particles But to scale this up is very difficult so I'm really curious about this. If the idea is called photonic propulsion, if you want to Google it and look it up, it's super fascinating stuff. Yeah. They would use laser sales on a little tiny probe that weighs a gram and then they would send it but they said really because they can't break the best they could do would be To take photos, and a really quick fly-by, and then send them back via laser. Look at Big Ben. Pretty much. Like! Like hey, it's Big Ben. Boy. Hey, which of these stories should we talk about on Thursday? I think we have to talk about Atlas. Atlas? Shrug. Yeah, talk about Nobot. Yeah, this Atlas thing the best thing ever or our imminent demise. Yeah, please. We'll dig into that on Thursday. Please tell us your thoughts on Atlas and whether or not you are pro-Atlas and would like to vaporize the man with a hockey stick. Or You would like to side with humanity, and make sure these robots never rise up against us. I'll give them the hashtag heytd. It's kinda sad that those are the only two options, either vaporize someone, or give into the robot uprising. You have other options. Boy, yeah the HeyTD hashtag is what we use to check in on what you're saying about our stories and then we'll incorporate that into our discussion on Thursday by culling through your responses, so use that hashtag! Yes, make sure you use it, and with that being said let's check out our phonetographer of the day. [MUSIC] Our phonetographer of the day today is Mike, who took this picture on his iPhone 6. Mike wrote in and said, I took this picture with my iPhone 6 in tandem with a pair of binoculars. As many people know, taking pictures of the moon with a smartphone is nearly impossible. Fewer people know that you can hack other optics to enhance your photography. I hope you like my photo as much as I like your show. Well, we do. You have my permission to use this photo on the show. Thanks Mike that's cool. He hacked the ability to take a picture of the moon.>>Pretty rad, totally love it. I've seen people do this with telescopes as well. It's kind of interesting stuff so thank you for sending in your photography. If you want to send in your photography for our photographer of the day segment, email us tomorrow at cnet.com. Yeah, make sure you tell us what device you took that on and give us permission to use it on the show, and also give us a little story like Mike did. Its really interesting stuff. We'll be back tomorrow with our deep dyed episode. Find us on social media, talk to us about everything we been discussing this week so that we can have fun tomorrow. Well be talking to CEO of Yonder tomorrow which is a nifty little gadget you'll definitely want to check out. Yep. But until then. Be a good Human. See you guys next time. Bye. [SOUND] [MUSIC]