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One of the acquisitions (SCHAFT, Inc.) is a competitor in the current DARPA Robotics Challenge, and out of all of the teams that have shown off progress videos, SCHAFT has shown the greatest level of competence in handling the tasks as they're going to be structured at the Trials in Homestead in a few weeks. Very similar to what they did with the top team from the last DARPA Grand Challenge (self-driving cars).

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There is a great documentary talking to the guys who engineered the robot. Interesting story they are a couple of research students at University of Tokyo wanting to develop the robot for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, but there is a rule at the University that no military funded projects are allowed. So these guys are doing it independently, pretty awesome guys I wish them the best. In the documentary[1], you can see how SCHAFT robot works in detail.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKiXM7bUypk&t=25m0s

The work they've done is definitely impressive. Really looking forward to seeing the robot do its stuff in person down in Homestead.

Though Atlas is definitely nothing to sneeze at. I've become pretty fond of it since the summer :-)

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