This is a trend that gives me hope for the future. There's ever-increasingly advanced technology and technical knowledge accessible/affordable to the public, both hardware and software. What used to cost the military millions of dollars to develop, are now mass-produced and distributed, to fit in a pocket or to build one yourself.

Sure, the cutting edge stuff will always be in the realm of experts with funding, but the pace of progress in technology is such that there seem to be plenty of opportunities for innovation from the grassroots level, serious amateurs and hobbyists.

It kinda feels similar to the early era of personal computers, where anybody with interest and ideas could enter the field, learn things on their own, and even contribute to its advancement.

That just seems to move along in little tiny steps. No balance or slip recovery shown. That's the wind-up toy level of walking.[1]

Still, it shouldn't be that hard to make a small version of Big Dog technology now. They put a lot of money into fast hydraulic servos, which you no longer need for anything smaller than a horse. Gyros and accelerometers are cheap now, because they're phone parts. Motors and motor controllers are much better and cheaper now. Big Dog's compute power was a Pentium 4, which is nothing today. Force feedback sensors for the feet are still expensive, because there's no mass market. You need those for slip control.

[1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Wind-Up-Wooly-Walker/194850858