Asimo is quite the pimp peice of material. Technicaly, all he's doing there is completeing his walk program at a faster pace. The thing that distinguishes running from fast walking is the fact that in a run, both feet leave the ground. Asimo still has one foot firmly planted for each step.
they have gotten the locomotion of the run, hop, skip etc etc perfected, but in suspended half body models. The tricky part is getting the little bastard to maintain his balance, AND provide the additional power needed.
He still gets most of his walking based sensory data from what he feels from each footstep. Visualy, all he can do is descern the existence of objects and avoid them. They'll need to develop another form of balance data aquisition to get him hoping and running, or else he wont know where the ground is once his feet leave it. He can probably hop, because his feet aren't moving relative to where they started, but a run will require much better balance, sensory perception, and motor skills.
Cant wait, this shit is great. I have a feeling his footsteps are going to be historicaly significant. graemlins/thumb.gif