He describes the mechanism used to make it walk as "a new wheel," it can apparently hold quite a bit of weight! I could definitely see this being useful in a few fields: a Mars Rover? a bomb sweeper/defuser? on a small scale, a Roomba?
FYI - you can build one of your own. Gakken did two kits a couple years ago. I got one for my buddy. They're pretty cool, and what he does is nifty... but it really isn't much more than inventive linkage design to make the world's most overly complex tumbleweeds. I dig his shit, don't get me wrong... but he's not making "new life" he's making "new whirligigs."
The ingenuity of these things is insane. He's made little computers out of PVC, tubes, and bottles that have robust mechanical bodies that move efficiently and entirely on the power of wind. I would love to visit a beach park with these things roaming freely on their own.
My jaw dropped when he demonstrated the "brain." Of course it's just some binary, but the fact that somebody took the time to figure out how to make it out of PVC when there were no apparent practical uses just floored me. It would be kind of creepy to see these things walking around on a beach unattended, especially at night...
I've seen videos of his work before, it is amazing. There is something here that I think mike would appreciate. The math of form and function. Awesome stuff.