Well folks, it’s happening. The HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) robot suit is going into mass production and will be available in Japan sometime soon for around $4,200. This is great news for HAL’s target market: Its ability to grant its wearer tenfold strength increases during specific actions could change the lives of people with degenerative muscle diseases, or accident victims who would otherwise need long, difficult rehabilitative therapy to regain basic mobility. And with a five-hour battery life, it could be quite practical for day to day use. Thanks, but no thanks . I don’t care if I was just a head, I would never ask a robot for help. But that’s just me and my genius brain talking. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who would gladly use a HAL suit to better their quality of life. And those people — those people are the enemy. Video after the jump, just for the HAL of it.

The A-Pod is a scary-ass robot built by some A-Hole because his parents didn’t play with him enough as a child, and now he’s hellbent on robotic world domination . Of course, I suppose it could have been a woman that built it, in which case, witchcraft. Now, where’d I put my pitchfork? Ha, I’ve been sitting on it this whole time! A-Pod is an ant inspired hexapod robot with a 2 DOF abdomen (tail), a 3 DOF head with large mandibles. 6 legs with 3 DOF each. Total 25 servos. This video demonstrates body movement and mandible control. I still have to do some mechanical improvements to the legs (therefore little walking) The majority of the video consists of the robot dry-humping the floor, but there was a little footage demonstrating how easily the bot’s mandibles can hold a Coke can or snip off your change purse. Which, be honest, is probably just full of useless Canadian coins anyways. BOOM — consider yourself metaphored, son! Youtube Thanks to Jon and Kevin, who tried stomping the bastard but only lost toes.

What is this, an entry in the world’s creepiest robot competition? Shockingly not. It’s ‘Child-robot with Biomimetic Body’ (CB2), a learning robot and harbinger of death. Just look into those eyes — can you feel him stabbing you in your sleep? I can, and it burns. You see, he’s using a laser knife . Technology: robots have it. As you might expect, the bot hasn’t simply spent its past two years of existence terrifying the staff at Osaka University, it’s actually been learning, and it’s now apparently able to make use of its 51 air-powered motors to move itself through a room “quite smoothly” — with a helping hand, of course. What’s more, the researchers behind CB2 are now also starting to talk about some of their future projects, including a new “robo species” that they say will have learning abilities “somewhere between those of a human and other primate species such as the chimpanzee.” Osaka, Osaka, Osaka, when will you learn? I say cut the robotics and actually make a positive contribution to humanity instead of trying to destroy us. Need some ideas for areas of study? Good, I happen to have a list: 1. cloning dinosaurs 2. cloning the things that came after dinosaurs but weren’t dinosaurs but were still really sexy, like woolly mammoths and shit. 3. a shrinking ray. Well, I think you’ve got your work cut out for you, now get cracking. Also, I’d be happy to intern if you ever successfully clone anything. No, really, I insist. CB2 “Child Robot” returns: smarter, creepier than ever [engadget] Thanks to Julian, Paul, Spoonman and Soop, who thought the robot was cute and are therefore dead to me.

Remember Boston Dynamic’s BigDog ? Well they decided it’d be funny to put horns on it and pretend like it’s a bull. As you can see, it’s not humorous . Nope, not one bit. I don’t care if you paint its face and have it make balloon animals at the fair, BigDog will never be funny. Or cute. Not even with a furry little bunny tail and dressed like a schoolgirl. Which, ZOMG….. dinosaursdressedlikeschoolgirls.com! Video: BigDog turned into BigBull (with BigHorns) [engadget] Thanks to Julian and Pete, who could totally ride that thing for the full 8 seconds.

Everybody knows gold makes for quality audio cable and connectors, but how does it fare as an actual speaker exterior? Pretty freaking ugly if you ask me. But England’s Gold Acoustics seems to think there’s something to it , because their GA Star line of speakers come complete with gold plating. These things would look great in your house right next to me kicking your ass, don’t you think? No word on cost, but I’m going to go out on a limb and….AAAAAAAAAAAAHH! *thud* Add some bling to your audio rig with Gold Acoustics speakers [dvice]

The iCub is an iStupidly named robot-child created by the RobotCub Consortium in Italy (not to be confused with Opus Dei). He was designed to have the movement and learning capabilities of a three-year old child and a face only a mother could love. A really loving mother. A blind one with no ears or sense of feeling in her hands. The iCub is able to crawl and walk, make human-like eye and head movements and recognise and grasp objects like a toddler, scientists say. ‘It’s hoped the iCub will develop its cognitive capabilities in the same way as a child, progressively learning about its own bodily skills, how to interact with the world and eventually how to communicate with other individuals.’ Oh man, it seems like only yesterday I first learning about my own “bodily skills”. Awh yeah — you know the one I’m talking about: I can pull my thumb back all the way! Meet iCub - the robot that moves and learns like a child [dailymail] and Youtube Thanks to Remo, Annie, Justin, Kyle and The Random Factor, who would never give birth to this thing.

This is a little gallery of scary-ass robots that want to kill you so they can mate with your computer . This particular model is called “My Spoon” and was designed to help people with no arms or really sucky arms to eat. As you can see, it’s about to choke out Japanese Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe. God knows what’s it’s gonna do to him once he’s out, but I suspect use his body as a breeding chamber for an army of nanobots. These nanobots will then invade our fresh water supply and, quite possibly, clog your faucet. Hit the jump for gallery, and then hit the link at the end for a much larger, HD gallery with explanations of which each of the doomsday machines does.