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Remember way back in March 2012, when a robot cheetah designed by the Pentagon’s finest minds failed to outrun Olympian sprinter Usain Bolt? Remember how the metal creature’s mere 18 miles an hour — when compared to Bolt’s all-time high of 27.79 mph — provided humanity with some shred of dignity and self-assurance?

Okay, maybe you don’t remember all of that. But if you do, forget it. Because the cybernetic cat is back — and it just beat Bolt’s best time.

The Cheetah, as it is officially known, was created by a company called Boston Dynamics and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, the same group of military minds that brought us the Internet.

In a video DARPA just released, seen above, the Cheetah laughs off Bolt’s challenge. Loping strangely along on four metal legs, the creature reaches 29.3 mph before its need for speed trips it up.

What’s more, Bolt could only sustain that pace for 20 meters (and he had a little tailwind action, if truth be told). In theory, the Cheetah could complete an entire marathon in less than an hour.

DARPA hopes this strange device could help foot soldiers on the battlefields of the future, like some kind of invincible sniffer dog on speed. But given that its inventions tend to have peacetime implications — you may have noticed that Internet thing isn’t just for defense scientists any more — we expect plenty of unintended consequences.

Will robots compete in the Olympics of the 2020s and take all our medals? Will they challenge us to street races and laugh as we cough and splutter in last place?

I, for one, would like to welcome our new superfast overlords.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/09/05/robot-faster-usain-bolt/