If you're curious about how the robot revolution is tracking, google Boston Dynamics.
You'll find videos of a robot named Atlas doing parkour - an activity you may have heard of, which often involves people jumping around on buildings.
Atlas uses its whole body - legs, arms and torso - to perform "a sequence of dynamic manoeuvres that form a gymnastic routine".
It's a stunning and eerie video, which University of Newcastle artificial intelligence researcher Alexandre Mendes told us about.
Boston Dynamics is an American company founded in 1992 through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"They have a range of robots - super advanced," Dr Mendes said.
"They can do some tasks better than humans now. They are becoming so agile, doing gymnastics and parkour. Imagine in 20 years how that will look."
Dr Mendes is involved with NUbots - the University of Newcastle's robot soccer team.
We asked him if he could imagine professional robot soccer competitions in future.
"In theory, they could play soccer better than us. They could kick the ball harder than us. Eventually they'll be better," he said.
"But would you pay to see two teams of robots play against each other? Probably some people will. I might be old school, but I don't see humans cheering for robots."
He posed the same question about racing autonomous cars.
"Are you going to put those in a Formula One race, with Ferrari against McLaren? Would you pay to watch two autonomous cars trying to beat each other?"
Counting Sheep
We wrote on Wednesday that nurses were surprised to see a sheep in the backseat of a car, as it made its way through the COVID-19 drive-through testing clinic at Belmont.
We reported that the sheep's name was Rosie.
The sheep's mum Rachel King told Topics: "Whoever told you the sheep was Rosie pulled the wool over your eyes!"
"It was Louie!"
Ahhh, Louie the sheep. We should have known.
We hear Louie is stressed about being labelled a female. Since the story, he's been struggling to relax. He had to count sheep to get to sleep.
Louie sent Topics a terse text message, saying: "Stuff ewe."
We're kidding, we're kidding. Let's separate the sheep from the goats. Louie isn't worried. He's calm. He's as gentle as a lamb. He's also friendly.
Rachel said if there was another local sheep it "might be fun for them to meet one day".
"I seem to recall an article a year or so ago about someone walking a lamb around Lake Macquarie," she said.
"If you hear anything on that globally important news front, please stay in touch."
Let's do this, people. Who can help get a play-date for Louie?
- topics@newcastleherald.com.au
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