Dogsey

t's a video which is bound to go viral. Spot sets off down an office corridor, and then out into the open air. At various points, for no apparent reason, people approach him and try to kick him over - he staggers back and then resumes his progress.

And no, there are unlikely to be protests to the RSPCA because Spot is actually a robot dog. It is the latest, most sophisticated creation of a company called Boston Dynamics. Spot follows in the footsteps of Big Dog, which as its name suggests was a rather larger but cruder robot seen rampaging across the Massachusetts countryside in another video which since 2008 has had more than 16 million YouTube views.