The latest robot video of Atlas doing some partial Karate moves seems to have attracted the attention of the Internet - the video is worth seeing.

Atlas is an impressive, and perhaps even scary, robot. It is big and it looks powerful in a way that suggests that getting in its way is a bad idea. 

The DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) is getting closer and we will soon know if there is to be any improvement over the initial trials, which mostly served to demonstrate how far robots were from being useful. The impressive looking Atlas was particularly prone to fall over at the slightest provocation. 

Things do seem to be getting better, however, if you can judge by the latest video from IHMC titled Atlas KarateKid. You see a robot balance one-footed on a pile of blocks and execute the crane kick maneuver:

OK, I agree we don't actually get to the kick part but the balancing is impressive. Robots find it quite hard to jump so the kick part of the maneuver is probably still out of reach.

Notice that the video is in real time, which makes it more impressive, but still not up to our expectations of a fully capable humanoid robot of the sort needed to perform well in the DRC. 

All of the Atlas robots are due for a refit at Boston Dynamics and one of the promised upgrades is getting rid of the tether. Yes, Atlas walks free.

One final thought. 

How did Atlas get up on the blocks in the first place?

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