WOPR JR

In the classic 80s movie War Games, all that stood between us and global thermonuclear war was a computer’s calculation that tic-tac-toe is unwinnable.

Well “XXX” your ass goodbye!

The iCub, an open source robot being developed across 11 European universities and institutions, just demonstrated its computer skills at the Humanoid Robotics Symposium at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (video below).

The toddler-like robot is capable of 53 distinct movements or “degrees of freedom” allowing it to learn through imitation. Yan Wu, a PhD student from Imperial College, London, explains, “Controlling a robot using software instructions is an incredibly time-consuming and complicated process. So if we can teach it to imitate our movements we will save a lot of time and effort.”