If any company is going to end up becoming Cyberdyne Systems it will be Boston Dynamics. They have created sprinting Cheetahs, walking humanoids, and self-stabilizing dogs. Their latest robot — Spot — is a smaller, more agile version of the BigDog rough-terrain robot, and it can stabilize itself so well that kicking it might make you feel bad for the little guy.

Weighing only 160 pounds, Spot can easily navigate both indoor and (very rough) outdoor terrain. It can even gallop. You can watch a full video of Spot’s trials below:

Like many other robots that Boston Dynamics has produced, the huge advantage with Spot is that it is untethered — it runs on battery power. The company obviously has miniaturization of components and power sources down to a science.

And you know what? I’m not going to say “I for one welcome our robot overlords” or “this is terrifying.” No. This is straight-up awesome. Robots like this are wonders of engineering and are not going to rise up and destroy us. Probably. Nice doggy.

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HT: Gizmodo