This scares me.

http://kotaku.com/5954782/we-are-one-step-and-short-jump-closer-to-real-metal-gears

In case you don't know what Metal Gears are, "The general definition of a Metal Gear is a mobile nuclear launch platform similar in purpose to ballistic missile submarines." -http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Metal_Gear_(weapon) They are from a fiction video game called Metal Gear Solid

Thoughts?

Unlikely.

Any mecha made will be more spider-like in design than bipedal. The square-cube law will see to that (the mechs would sink into the ground if they relied only on two legs... or have feet 20 feet wide for something house-sized!)

What you see there is closer to an android. More like the Terminator than a Metal Gear.

Don't worry about it, large mechs are impracticle. Small drones will be more common. The largest may be human sized or only slightly larger. Actual mecha will never be a thing because there are other vehicles that do everything they do but better. If you need something larger than a man your better served by having a Predator Drone snipe it, or perhaps a large truck/tank like robot.

Just for fun though have http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEdNJoG68T8Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cta8KBPAjE

Edit
The one thing a large mech would be good for is once the resistance in an area has been rushed and you need an imposing looking device of terror to keep the populace in line. Just effective enough to be a threat to any local resistance. Even then that can be questionable.

And even if you built a giant robot, launching a nuke from it is no simple task, unless you're going to go the Liberty Prime route and have it chuck tactical nukes like footballs. For example, the Inter-continental Stealth Nuke capability of Metal Gear Rex was predicated upon it's shoulder mounted rail gun. We are a long way away from a railgun that could hit any place on the planet from a ground level firing position.

Tanks just do what a mech could do better and cheaper Sure they're awesome, but real wolrd military takes practicality over awesomeness. Those bastards!

I think instead of mechs some sort of Power Armor is more propable for heavily armored "walking tanks". Though armoring a human as good as a tank while still keep him mobile is a long way away

And there already are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-2UTTH_Topol_M no need to build a giant mech for that.

Has the OP been living under a rock? They've been developing these robots for the past several years. Some of them have even been deployed. We've been heading this direction for a long time. First with the failed OICW and now unmanned soldiers and vehicles.

I welcome my new robot over lords. Maybe we'll be killed off by them.

Yeah that would be cool.
The problem with the concept of powered armor is human reaction. Sometimes in heavy situations, humans will react fast and move quick to save their lives whether its to block an attack or dodge an explosion. And when that happens, they will break their arms or possibly kill themselves with the assisted power of the power armor. (cus power armor is supposed to make you stronger and stuff). Its like becoming 10x stronger, without having the muscles built up for it, so then you turn your head too quick and snap your own neck, haha.

My first thought when I saw the title of this thread:

I'd better get my cardboard box ready

This is why you would need to measure the persons reaction times as well as how flexible they are. Then program these into the armor so the mech won't move past human paramaters. In speed as well as in joint flexibility. So the mech wont turn too fast and far to snap his neck or break other bones. If there was some way to wirelessly hack into the armour it would make it vulnerable to hackers breaking these constrains and killing the occupant. You could design armor so that it only moves like a human does from a hardware stand point but its much harder, and is likely to severely impair the effectivness of said armor.

Bah! screw metal gears, give me freaking gundams then we'll talk.

In all honesty i'm not surprised by this type of robotic ingenuity and how far we've advanced. That Honda thing playing the violin is the creepiest thing i've seen so far. Sadly, it plays the violin better than I do, but I guess that isn't saying much.

We're all screwed. Epicfail's body will be put in one 0_0

Well I have a Bandanna that gives me unlimited ammo and a Cardboard box that got me into Area 51.

Oh wow Kotaku is way behind with that one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FFGfq0pRczY

It can do more than just stairs.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/hacking-the-presidents-dna/309147/?single_page=true Now that is worrisome, especially as it can also theoretically be used as the Blacklight virus was intended to be used in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_(video_game), as a method to exterminate whole demographics with a certain genetic marker.