iRobot's Cronenbergian Blob Bot is Ready to Roll, or Rather Ooze

Super cool. Extra super freaky though. I'd stomp on it if I saw it anywhere near me. And what are those "various tasks" they mention? Plugging drains?

that is really cool tech. The Blob is born !

I was going to say, first thing that comes to my mind - that movie, THE BLOB

I like it.

I wonder if this technology could be used to create an artificial heart.

Squishy.

In the future, your soccer ball will come when you call it, and will be able to evade your dog instead of getting chewed to bits.

i don't see how useful this will prove to be, but it sure is cool.

and it looks more balloon than blob.

This is stupid and useless, and the fact that they are spending $3.3 million on this is just unbelievable!!!

I can easily see uses for this "blob". For example imagine it could be fitted with a heartbeat sensor and used to search a collapsed building for life, squishing thru cracks and small openings.

Also I know DARPA gets lots of money to explore weird and strange things, many of which have resulted in technologies that most would not realize. One of their better known contributions to the world is the INTERNET (contrary to popular belief Al Gore did not invent it).

My guess is they will market it "search and rescue" but what they will use it for is "bunker infiltration." Why put another $100,000 bunker buster into another potentially empty hole in Afghanistan? Of course, $100,000 is worth risking soldiers first. These could go where a track based scouter cannot. Once life is found (multidirectional heat sensors and directional radar would not have to break the skin), then you drop the heat. No life, no bomb, move on to the next gopher hole.

this "blob" could be used for building things or creating, The blob is quite expensive though. if i saw this thing I would just pick it up and squish it in my hands unless it had acid in it... www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz9IPVvXcGc...

this thing looks really weird....but how fast can it move? if it moves at a snails pace there will be no point in it.

next they need to make it out of an explosive that has its same properties so it can sneak in enemy locations and blow them up!!

this thing looks really weird....but how fast can it move? if it moves at a snails pace there will be no point in it.

next they need to make it out of an explosive that has its same properties so it can sneak in enemy locations and blow them up!!

Well companies can spend there money anyways they want. Obviously they must have a purpose for it. Companies have spent far more money on worst things.

This will change the face of what we call robotics.

It's the closest means we have of creating bio-independent like robots.
You could engineer a robotic organism with the application of this technology.

Terminator2 is happening! ahhhhhhhhh

And foolish me I thought that the movie THE BLOB was fiction! Silly me. Soon humans will be absorbed by this gelatinous mass of goo. Will the strange never cease? Rod Serling of the former TV series show The Twilight Zone would be proud of this new development if he were still alive......

In the far future, tires that give you an extra boost by "kicking" off the ground like your foot does now.

And wouldn't it be a better design to have each compartment be able to be manipulated independently, instead of having to stop and deflate it every so often.

c'mon, people, get with it! this is the stuff of a medical miracle! doesn't this thing look made to order(almost), for cleaning out an artery? or a digestive tract? how bout encasing an exposed, broken bone to prevent infection and marrow poisoning? to re-inflate a lung or stimulate the heart with massage? encapsulate and remove tumors and cysts? an auto-tourniquet? clear blocked airways? believe it, people, this is important. Great work, chembot design team, DARPA.

THIS is the birth of the super-adaptiod.

by the way, whoever that is who keeps going on and on about DARPA, or the funding grant from back in '68, that was a stepping stone in a long line of steps dating back to 7500bc., the fact is that our government paid to have a technology developed, and the scientists in those fields each for the most part, took a next logical step. just as it is jerkish of me to point out that if part of the product of my DAY'S WORK saved someone's life, so, what? they owe me something? so it is getting real old telling us that we owe DARPA, or anyone else any special priveledge for doing their job. i've tried to point this out before, but no one got it. All In A Days Work. The fatherS of the internet, and the computer are WAY to many to list here, so get off it.

It's like a baby Rover from The Prisoner:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Ffr1U7KMY

It is in the baby stage, but really cool and lots of potential.

This is beyond cool. This technology combined with the WD-2 face morphing robot would be one amazing/scary robot.