Who da man? Uman…u. U da man. The Uman robot is pretty impressive. It’s bots like this that will have us crying in a corner while our fellow humans are getting disemboweled nearby, in no time at all. It was developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, ad UMan stands for UMass Mobile Manipulator. It’s an intelligent robot capable of teaching itself how to use objects it has never encountered before. When you think about it that’s pretty amazing. I can’t get my grandmother to figure out a cell phone.

With a plain old webcam, UMan analyzes differences between side by side pixels and pokes an object around in an attempt to figure out its shape and how it moves. UMan then uses that information to figure out how to manipulate the object.

Frightening? Hell yes. Hit the link for a creepy video and then pack up and head for the mountains.

[Technologyreview]