New year, new skills for robot dogs

Two videos of robot dogs surfaced this week -- just in time for Lunar New Year -- highlighting the progress researchers across the world continue to make in creating mechanical creatures that walk like living ones.

The first, from Zhejiang University in eastern China, shows a robot stepping gingerly through the snow. Later it steps on a pile of pipes and stumbles -- but impressively, keeps its balance and doesn’t fall.

But across the Pacific, another robot went further. Boston Dynamics, the walking robot pioneer once owned by Google, unveiled one that can walk up to a door -- and then open it, all by itself.