Watch: Creepy humanoid robot shows off new-and-improved gymnastics routine

Boston Dynamics' creepy humanoid robot, Atlas, shows off a new level of gymnastic talent in the company's latest clip.

Since 2013, Atlas has graduated from awkwardly bending and shifting boxes to today's "pakour" showcase, which shoes him tumbling and spinning.

Real-life uses and the commercial end-game remain unclear.

In late 2013, Boston Dynamics was bought by Google X (later X, a subsidiary of Google's parent Alphabet) for an undisclosed sum.

Nimble, but to what end? Photo / YouTube

In 2017, Google off-loaded it to Japansese throw-stuff-at-the-wall investment outfit SoftBank Group, again for an undisclosed amount.

The company has also scored funding from the shadowy US military agency Darpa for its four-legged robot, Big Dog (Darpra - or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has also been one of Rocket Lab's backers).

In April Boston Dynamics bought the Silicon Valley-based Kinema Systems, which makes more meat-and-potatoes style assembly-line vaccum-gripper robots.

Along the way, Atlas has got smarter and smarter, or creepier and creepier.

Boston Dynamics said about today's routine, "We created the maneuvers using new techniques that streamline the development process. First, an optimisation algorithm transforms high-level descriptions of each maneuver into dynamically-feasible reference motions.

"Then Atlas tracks the motions using a model predictive controller that smoothly blends from one maneuver to the next. Using this approach, we developed the routine significantly faster than previous Atlas routines, with a performance success rate of about 80 per cent."