Boston Dynamics has a reputation for building machines which push the boundaries of robotics technology, albeit with a slightly creepy persona. Its latest robot is no different.

Marc Raibert, the founder of the Google-owned company, has shown off its latest creation, Handle. "Everybody thinks we only do legged-robots, so no-one has seen this," Raibert said on stage, in a video posted online by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson. "This is the debut presentation of what I think will be a nightmare inducing robot."


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In the video of the seemingly new robot, which Jurvetson says Boston Dynamics has now asked him to blur, Handle can be seen standing on its legs and moving around a testing room. It dynamically swerves, leans and spins.

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The robot is also able to travel across uneven surfaces and can be seen jumping over an object. During the discussion at what appears to be at the Abundance360 conference in Beverly Hills, no details were given about the robot's weight, battery life, sensing capabilities and more.


"This is an experiment in combining wheels with legs, with a very dynamic system that is balancing itself all the time and has a lot of knowledge in how to throw its weight around," Raibert says in the clip. "This is more efficient than a robot with legs, it can carry a reasonably heavy load of a small footprint."

He continues to explain it is called Handle because "it's supposed to handle objects eventually". Evidently, the thinking behind the bot is that it could replace the need for humans to lift and carry heavy items.


This latest development from Boston Dynamics is a shift away from its bi-pedal robots, or robots with legs and feet. In recent years, the firm has demonstrated how its two-legged Atlas robot operates outdoors on rocky terrain. Atlas, weighing 180 pounds, can be pushed over and stand-up again.

Elsewhere the company's SpotMini robot doesn't handle banana peels well, and BigDog has proved a suitable substitute for Santa's reindeer.

In March 2016, it was reported Google was preparing to put the robotics company up for sale. A report from Bloomberg claimed executives at parent company Alphabet had decided Boston Dynamics was not likely to make a profit, however, no deal or official word has been completed.