Every fan of technology and sci-fi would have loved to be in the shoes of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, as he piloted a huge robot, that looked takes straight from Transformers, at an Amazon-organized annual conference for robotics enthusiasts – Machine Learning, Home Automation, Robotics and Space Exploration (MARS)- in Palm Springs, Calif. Photos and clips of the humanoid robot, which is four-meters-tall (13-foot) and weighs 1.5 tons, first surfaced online last year, however sceptics have questioned the authenticity of footage released showing the robot walking.
Bezos was filmed controlling the robot’s arms in the latest footage; however it was attached to some chains and was seemingly unable to actually walk around by itself.
According to livescience.com, the robot does not pick anything up in the video, either, which is notable because its developers say that one of their goals is to create piloted robots for real-world jobs, like cleaning up the Fukushima nuclear power plant that was damaged in 2011 when a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan. “So far, none of the footage of the mech has shown it manipulating objects. The massive bot also runs on external power, which means that, so far, it’s unable to work untethered,” added Stephanie Pappas for Live Science.
The suit was created by robotics expert Vitaly Bulgarov, a veteran of science fiction blockbusters, for the South Korean technology company.
