DARPA's AlphaDog robotic pack mule is ready for battle (and awesome)

Ready for battle? Awesome? Both of these are plainly false. Obviously we have learned nothing from Metal Gear Solid 4...

Does anyone else have an uncontrollable urge to jump on that thing and ride it around? I suppose it would be dangerous, but this could spawn a new breed of bull-riding scientist-cowboys.

The total lack of detail here is completely uninteresting. Look up bigdog and you cam see tons of cool articles and better videos. BigDog was an awesome prototype but not ready for prime time. I was hoping to see whether they solved the major noise issues that essentially made earlier prototypes unusable. In the military, if you are going through rugged terrain, it's very common that you are doing so for stealth reasons. Earlier versions of BigDog wouldn't allow for this.

I'm no tactical attack expert, but don't think that the prototype in the video is "battle ready". However, the news of al-Awlaki killed by a drone attack (along with numerous other such successful hits) implies that the armed forces are definitely moving towards more drones and robots.

I don't know what the chances of AlphaDog against a man with a high powered rifle, but think of this: A number of these, armed with some sonic weapons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon), attacking a compound at night. Then, the "instill a little fear in the enemy" bit may not sound so stupid.

A newer(?) video showing it actually being field-tested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqMVg5ixhd0

// please mute the speakers

Put some armor on this thing and some sniper detection systems it will map out all the enemies locations who shoot at it or put a soflam on it and it can run through the mountains marking hidden targets for a drone or AC-130 overhead.

But there are so many technologies that you can integrate together on the Alpha dog (platform) to create so many military capabilities.