Flexible Robots

Robots are going to borrow from the elephant now, taking into account the long trunk and its ability to move things and act as another appendage for great pachyderms. These new mobile platforms will have be able to do things traditional robotic arms won't do, giving the robot the ability to get to strange places...so really its not an elephants trunk, but rather a snake like tentacle that allows the robotic arm/hand to get in hard to reach areas. Space.com

Sort of like they have in War of the Worlds I think.