The Year in Robots (2018): Boston Dynamics, Baxter, and More

Depending on your perspective, 2018 either brought us closer to salvation by way of robots, or closer to doom by way of robots: Where some see the end of meaningless work, others see the end of humanity, also meaningless. Whatever your biases toward the machines, this year has been a big one for the field of robotics, which continues to roll around joyously in the convergence of falling prices, better software and hardware, and skyrocketing demand from industry. Given that it's That Time of Year again, we've collected a list of the biggest moments in robotics in 2018, from the continued ascendance of Boston Dynamics' SpotMini quadruped to the rapid rise and fall of the home robot. Taking a quick break from uploading videos of its humanoid robot Atlas doing backflips, Boston Dynamics announced that one of its machines, the four-legged SpotMini, will finally go on sale in 2019. The question now becomes: What do you do with a robot that can fight off stick-wielding humans?