Boston Dynamics' Creepy Robot "Dog" Can Open Doors

"We're just building a dog," they say. It's even called SpotMini, so it all seems very legit'... until they installed a big arm in place of the head.

Forget clowns in the gutters; this is what real nightmares are made of. Can you imagine this thing walking in on you in the middle of the night? Because now doors are not enough to keep it out.

And don't tell me this trick is something you'd want your pet to do. Because if you live alone, the whole point of closing a door is to keep Fido from climbing into bed.

The team at Boston Dynamics revealed this version of the all-electric SpotMini tree months ago. And once again, it feels like they're trying to be funny. One robot comes up to the door and realizes it's stuck, then a second arrives with its head-mounted arm and within a few dozen seconds, it manages to waltz on through to the other side.

It's not yet clear if there's a man with a laptop in charge of what the Spot is doing, but the whole point of the products being developed by the company is to be free of human intervention.

Sure, the four-legged machine is inherintly more stable. But we couldn't help noticing how it still leans back when pulling the door out and uses its left front paw to hold it that way. It's even polite, keeping the door open for the other robot. Is that because it's female?

SpotMini is a new smaller version of the Spot robot, weighing 55 lbs dry or 65 pounds if you include its arm. It's is all-electric (no hydraulics) and runs for about 90 minutes on a charge, depending on what tasks it's been given. The company says it's also one of the quietest robots they have ever built. It has a variety of sensors, including depth cameras, a solid state gyro (IMU) and proprioception sensors in the limbs.