Pentagon builds shape-shifting robot

Well, imagine the paper is nanoscale. Now - imagine that it's part of a flack jacket that can reconfigure itself to strengthen the area that a bullet is just about to hit. Or imagine a tank that can detect incoming fire and reconfigure itself so that it passes straight through it. mind=blown

sometimes scientists just do something to prove the can and that its possible then figure out what to do with it, either way it be pretty cool to have or see Hence the expression mentioned earlier, proof of concept. If the concept is proven to be sound, workable and practical, then the development dollars start rolling in. that's how development often works. But seriously, imagine the possibilities with something like this. They're endless.

Now, all we need is that iconic tranforming sound and we're good to go!

It may have no particular use now, but it's the beginning of a remarkable technology. The fact that this exists is fascinating to me. I can't wait to see how this evolves, and what later uses it will have. I agree, however; scientists need to be careful of what they develop. This needs to be tempered with common sense and common decency. (I'm playing the devil's advocate here.)

Well that looks like the pentagon is wasting money again. I can't come up with anything practicle for a foldable sheet of paper. Can anyone else come up with anything? I bet folks said that to when the military was developing the internet lol.

A lot of people said the same thing about Alaska when it was first bought. I just wonder how far advanced recent models maybe that are being developed now and how far along countries like Japan and Korea are in this very technology.

Have you never heard of "proof-of-concept"? true but they could've at least had a use for it as they unveiled it even the invisibility cloak had more progress when they unveiled it

"it is anticipated that in future it will be used to create full-sized cars and aircraft that morph as they move, or robots that can "flow" like mercury into small openings, or multipurpose military uniforms that can adapt to different environments" hmm... in other words, Pentagon is impressed with some future tech concepts of recent times, the line above is something along Trasformers meets Terminator 2 meets camouflage armor from Metal Gear solid etc, cool that in my lifetime I'll see concepts from games and movies I've seen, sadly I know it will be first used as weapons to kill and win some... [More]

Well I think it's quite nice. The robot itself may not be anything special at the moment but the research is quite interesting, it could bring us some very useful technology. Thanks for posting still waters next thing you know it'll be like Dragonball Z where vehicles and food and clothes come in capsules that you can press and release and then press another button on your wrist watch or what not and put it back. Or better yet, imagine a tent or two person survival house being on a capsule or being shifted into by a small robot. But I would see more of weapons being like this before anything e... [More]

I bet folks said that to when the military was developing the internet lol. Wait wait, this kind of technology looks very familar to me. What was that one crash there with the ufo deal that had that metallic paper thin material that no matter how many times you crumple it, it reconfigures itself back into shape. I think that was Roswell crash