Christabel Duah
What’s round, black and rolls all over?
Videos by Rare
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Apparently, it’s a Guardbot, which is both the name of a company and its signature product. According to Business Insider, Guardbot is a surveillance robot that’s equipped with recording capabilities and has the ability to travel over any terrain, including through water. That’s right — the satellite-controlled robot can swim. The spherical robot comes in ever-fashionable black and is covered in varying spokes and treads that assist in its movement. While videos of the robot showing off its skills are impressing people online, it’s the machine’s resemblance to famous — or infamous — pop culture bots that has people especially interested.
This robot surveillance ball can swim and roll on any terrain. pic.twitter.com/HFLL1IxHQN
— Insider International (@InsiderIntl) February 13, 2018
One Twitter user pointed out that it looks like something out of “RoboCop.”
Robocops are coming https://t.co/hOaMv5BT3j
— Abdulrahman AlHashim (@AbdulrahmanFH) February 13, 2018
Others noted that the robot had a lot in common with the spherical “Star Wars” droid BB-8.
BB-8😄 pic.twitter.com/xozPzodQ3s
— ibrahim (@ibraergl) February 13, 2018
https://twitter.com/moore_fraser/status/963392232480002049
Like a scene from “Black Mirror,” Guardbot is reminiscent of the killer robots from the Season 4 installment “Metalhead.” In that particular episode, humanity was taken over by murderous, four legged “dogs” that could travel over any terrain and also had visual capabilities. Eerie!
Black Mirror S:4 Metalhead https://t.co/eN6zCUmoIv
— Mo (@MeadowMaureen) February 12, 2018
https://twitter.com/wonlov10/status/963462083974180864
https://twitter.com/codecobber/status/963362046455812096
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According to Business Insider, Guardbot — while still only in development for military use — could cost upward of $100,000 and range anywhere in size from 5 inches to 7 feet in diameter. It comes equipped with two cameras, microphones, GPS and a battery that can last up to 25 hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrOcSzctDAU
