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The most interesting piece of technology I have seen recently has to be the BostonDynamics BigDog robot.

I got my first look at the BigDog on a YouTube video my dad sent me a link to. You can go to youtube.com and search for BigDog to find several videos on it (hint: it's not the ones with Toby Keith or motorcycles). The video has had more than 3 million views and 7,000 comments since it was posted March 17. It's also been featured on geeky Web sites such as slashdot.org, and it's easy to see why, as it's really a remarkable piece of machinery.

It's meant as a pack animal; it has four legs and a body that can carry more than 300 pounds. The really intriguing thing about it is the way it moves. Its three-jointed legs have obviously been patterned after an animal. The video shows it walking through woods, its gasoline engine whining. Weighing about 165 pounds, it picks its way along rather daintily. Its front legs bend backward at the knee, and its back legs bend forward. At first, it looks as if two people are facing each other in a strange costume, but then a man walks into the frame and you can see the robot is only about 3¹₂ feet tall. When on ice, the robot moves carefully, picking up one foot at a time and finding a stable place to put it. The man then gives it a powerful kick, and the robot goes sprawling to the side, but it is well-equipped to deal with this situation and, after a bit of scrambling, gets its feet underneath it again.

At first I thought this mechanical creature would be a good character in a horror movie, but then I found myself being creeped out by it. While its movements resembled that of a deer or goat, the whine of the engine and the jerkiness of the gait made it clear it was no natural animal. This feeling has been described as "the uncanny valley," and as robots continue to get more sophisticated and ubiquitous, you will probably hear more about it.

The concept was introduced in the 1970s by Masahiro Mori, a Japanese researcher on robots and religion. The basic idea is that people like lifelike robots but only up to a point. Once the robot gets too lifelike, it becomes unsettling. The creators of the BigDog robot have obviously anthropomorphized it to some extent because on their Web site they call it the "alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots."

Once the video switched from the forest and icy parking lot to the testing lab, my sense of unease receded. The lab had an obstacle course for the BigDog robot to negotiate. When faced with a pile of simulated rubble made of cinder blocks, its ingenious movement style really shone. It lifted one foot and carefully placed it, then another. After negotiating the rubble, it is shown running with a stiff-legged gait. When it reached a bump in the floor, it sprang into the air like a mountain goat and I was totally charmed, the uncanny valley far behind me.

The project was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, so it will certainly have military applications. Like most autonomous robots, it probably needs a human controller, but someday it could be programmed with Global Positioning System coordinates and let loose to pick its own path to a destination. Maybe someday something like it could be sent to Mars or even farther to explore territory too dangerous for humans. I can envision search-and-rescue operations making good use of a robot like this, too. Maybe someday there will even be home models available to carry our coolers, tents and backpacks when we go camping.

Pris Sears grew up in Florida, lives in Blacksburg and works among Virginia Tech's computers.