I imagine some scientist was sitting in his office one day, playing with his Winnie the Pooh doll and his Robocop action figure, when the proverbial light bulb appeared above his head, and thus the BEAR was born.  Vecna Robotics is developing the Battle Extraction-Assist Robot to scoop up fallen soldiers and take them to safety.  It can reportedly carry up to 500 lbs and can keep going for around 50 minutes.  They did in fact make it look like a teddy bear intentionally, the idea being to comfort the wounded it is transporting.  Apparently I’m the only one whose dreams were terrorized by a 6 foot tall metallic teddy bear as a child, because I personally find the prospect of my life being in this things hands (or paddles) terrifying.  On a brighter note, if the military applications don’t end up working out there are loads of potential commercial uses.  I’m thinking this thing has got Segway for kids written all over it.

As if treating a mannequin that can bleed and even flat line on you wasn’t stressful enough, researchers at Gifu University’s Graduate School of Medicine are hoping to make your residency even harder to manage. A newfangled robotic dummy packs a potent artificial brain, as it can reportedly "respond verbally to questions about how it feels and move its body in ways that exhibit the symptoms of its ailment." The current prototype is modeled after a female who honestly looks to have had one incredibly rough day week, and while it wasn’t clear if instructors could program the android to act out only a certain number of understood illnesses, we’re sure the library of problems will grow with time. Currently, the bot is being trailed to see if it will indeed prove to be a valuable learning tool to eager med students, and if all goes well, it should "become part of the curriculum next year."

Maybe it’s not quite as uber-strong as the HAL-5 exoskeleton (above), the Tokyo University of Science’s Muscle Suit is still nothing to be laughed at. Exchanging actual muscle usage for gadgetry, the powered suit lets you lift things your normally couldn’t on your own, like Rush Limbaugh.

The suit’s not portable, though; an external compressor and air regulation system are required to activate the pneumatics. This means it’ll likely find insdustrial uses, like in factories or in the garage of Lohan’s coke dealer.

It’s not commercial yet, so no price, but we see this little sub-market blowing up in the next few years as industrialists try to come up with new ways to make their poor workers more productive.

The HAL-5 exoskeleton (below), on the other robotic hand, can now be rented for just $590 a month for the next year, basically allowing anyone who saw Robocop to live out their fantasy of being a living-cyborg with superhuman strength.

If you had $600 to blow on renting the suit for a month, what would you do with it? I’d probably show up to an 80s dance party and start doing the robot the way it was meant to be done. That and I’d chuck cars left and right for giggles.

Of course right now the suit is useless for me. Until these can make you jump 50 feet in the air and outrun trains, I don’t see this as something I would buy.