Ring The Alarm: Watch Four-Legged Robot Gallop at 16 MPH

The latest robot demonstrations show scientists and engineers are getting closer to the technology depicted in blockbuster movies like “Star Wars,” “I, Robot,”  “The Matrix,” “Transformers,” or even “The Terminator.”  An example of this can be seen in new videos released Thursday by Boston Dynamics, the company behind the jittery BigDog robot and the speedy Cheetah robot. In its latest videos the company has unleashed a very fast and very loud four-legged bot, WildCat.

Although it doesn’t reach the treadmill speeds of the Cheetah robot, WildCat isn’t tethered to wires and can rocket across a flat terrain at 16 mph. And, oh yeah, it looks incredibly unsettling while doing so.

As the robot sprints and gallops across the parking lot , it becomes easy to imagine  how close we may be coming to  military, law enforcement and civilian use of these machines to carry out their everyday affairs  — which will ultimately lead to a robot apocalypse, according to the movies.

Take a look at the video above to see what the future holds.