Humanoid robot wins half-marathon in China; beats world record
Category: Health, Science & Technology
Via: bob-nelson • 7 months ago • 14 commentsBy: Associated Press via ESPN
about 40% of the robots navigated the course autonomously, while the others were remotely controlled
So... China makes better electric cars... and better robot runners... Who gives a fuck?!?!?!
DRILL, baby, DRILL !!!!!!!!!
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record.
The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21-kilometer (13-mile) race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, according to a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race kicked off.
That was faster than the human world record holder, Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race.
The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward from last year's inaugural race, during which the winning robot finished in 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds.
A robot runs in the second Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Half Marathon in Beijing.
Pedro PARDO / AFP via Getty Images
But the competition, which was held alongside a race for humans, wasn't without hiccups -- one robot fell flat at the start line, another bumped into a barrier.
Spectators were impressed by the robots, including Sun Zhigang, who had been in the audience last year and watched Sunday's race with his son.
"I feel enormous changes this year," Sun said. "It's the first time robots have surpassed humans, and that's something I never imagined."
Wang Wen, who came with his family, said robots seemed to have stolen much of the spotlight from human runners in the event.
"The robots' speed far exceeds that of humans," he said. "This may signal the arrival of sort of a new era."
Beijing E-Town said about 40% of the robots navigated the course autonomously, while the others were remotely controlled.
State media outlet Global Times reported that a separate, remotely-controlled robot from Honor was the first to cross the finish line in 48 minutes and 19 seconds. But it said the winning one used autonomous navigation and received the championship under the event's weighted scoring rules.
State broadcaster CCTV reported that the runners-up, which were also from Honor and used autonomous navigation, finished the race in about 51 minutes and 53 minutes respectively. A robot served as a traffic officer to direct the participants with its arm gestures and voice, CCTV added.
London-based technology research and advisory group Omdia recently ranked three Chinese companies -- AGIBOT, Unitree Robotics and UBTech Robotics Corp. -- as the only first-tier vendors in its global assessment for shipment numbers for general-purpose embodied intelligent robots.
They all shipped more than 1,000 units of the robots last year, with the first two companies shipping more than 5,000 units, the report said.
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This is just for presige.
The US is absent, of course....
The US defunds science while China develops their robot army.
Maybe we need a few trillion given to the defense department to work on building a robot army. I am sure the dems would be fine with that.
Maybe just quit bombing an already 'obliterated' and now nonexistent Iranian nuclear program would help.
You mean American spies are not already trying to steal the technology?
Yeah, but I heard the robot was manufactured as a male but transitioned to female for a competitive edge.
Ah, those tricky machines!!!
And all the female robots felt very uncomfortable.
This is nutty as hell. Will watching robots exercise improve any humans health? Cars can go faster than human beings too, and even bicycles and skateboards can too. So what?
This is cool, but is there ever a good reason to make a human-shaped robot? I mean, aside from the obvious x-rated reasons.
R2-D2 may be smarter, but don't you think C-3PO is better looking?
One of the robots entered in the race tripped over the slightly raised covering for the timing elements and fell on its face, broke apart and started twitching like it had been electrocuted.
Wouldn't it be better to use a robot to defuse a live bomb?
AI Robot soldiers can already think faster and run faster than us, and they can fly. They seldom miss their targets and they are never afraid. Are robot wars inevitable already? Yes, Nvidia is #1 top stock...