We first heard about these little animal robots from Tomy back in April. As it turns out, our guess that they’d be able to chase balls and avoid obstacles was dead on, since that (and pretty much nothing else) is what they can do. The only other feature to speak of is that they can sing tunes (of a sort), and if you put two of them together, they sing to each other. There isn’t any sort of remote control, but it appears as though you control the robot by tapping out simple patterns… Some kind of audio recognition, is my guess.

$20 is pretty inexpensive for a deceptively capable robot. I mean, if you look at it strictly, these robots have more “brains” (or more autonomous capability, anyway) than most hobby humanoids. They’re cheap enough that you could easily afford to buy a couple, rip them apart, and harvest them for parts. If you do so, I bet their cute little ears won’t wiggle anymore, but that’s a small price to pay for obstacle avoidance and object following hardware.

[ Brando ] VIA [ technabob ]

It’s gratifying, somehow, to see a robot that appears to struggle with a Sudoku puzzle just about as much as I do. Designed by Hans Andersson (already well known for his Rubick’s Cube solving NXT robot), the Sudoku Solver in fact has an easy time solving the puzzle, it just has a hard time figuring out what the puzzle is. After making one pass to figure out whether there is a number in each cell, it goes back and does a careful scan followed by some image processing to decide what each number is, creating an entire matrix for the puzzle and then, finally, crunching the numbers.

This whole process could certainly be made much faster and easier with the addition of a wide angle camera and some fancy pattern recognition software, but part of the charm of this robot is that it’s able to do what it does using only LEGO parts.

[ Sudoku Solver ] VIA [ Pocket Lint ]

This, apparently, is the trick Nao has up his nonexistent sleeve that’ll help him pick up chicks. Personally, I can throw a Frisbee slightly better than Nao, but it hasn’t helped me pick up chicks at all, unless you count picking them up off the ground after your wayward Frisbee smashes into the side of their head. Oh well, I can only assume it’s because I don’t live in Japan.

Watch Nao dance (’cause Nao likes to dance), after the jump. (Read more…)

We had a bit of an argument last November about which was stupider: Cam-Babies or Techno Dinkies. Commenter Zool sent us a link to the above video, which I think conclusively proves that Cam-Babies are not only stupider than Techno Dinkies, but waaayyy more annoying. If you’re insane, you can buy them from Strapya for about $27.

[ Strapya ]

That full size Gundam we wrote about last month has been activated to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Gundam. It’s Gundamania!

Yeah, okay, sorry, no more of that. Mainichi has pictures of the event, which includes all the smoke and green lasers and lighting effects that you could possibly ask for… You can see them all at the link, or just click more for a few of my favorites. (Read more…)

We got a look at the Prime-8 robot gorilla back in January, and now it looks like there’s a new robot toy from Bossa Nova that’s targeted more towards girls, a robot penguin called Penbo. Whoever it’s supposed to be targeted at, I personally wouldn’t mind having one… They seem kinda cute, and their whegs style of movement is sweet.

Penbo plays five different games, responds to sounds and touch, and comes with one of four fuzzy little babies in its tummy. Each baby interacts with Penbo in about 20 different ways, and Penbos interact with other Penbos as well, by speaking Penguish (of course). No word on whether Penbo interacts with Prime-8, but it would be cool if they did interact in a predator – prey kind of dynamic… Like, the Penbos would all group up into a herd, and the Prime-8s would stalk around the outside until finally they cornered the Penbo with the weakest battery and then tore it to pieces. Brutal, yes, but such is the circle of artificial life.

Penbo will be available on QVC on July 25th (and Amazon after that) for $80.

[ Penbo ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

Steven Leckhart from Boing Boing Gadgets found himself this fighting space cockbot mech robot toy thing from 1986 in a junk shop in San Francisco. It’s 12 inches tall, battery operated, and (according to the box) includes the following INCREDIBLY AWESOME features:

– Head with colorful lamp

– Chest with colorful lamp

– Attached with 2 eggs. There are 12 bullets in each egg.

– Walkable feet for advancing

– Wings can wave and shoot the bullet.

– The cock can turn it body for 360

– Never let a child swallow the bullet

Best of all, you can be the wielder of this space cock… All you have to do is come up with some space cock inspired art of some kind and submit it over at BBG. I’m tempted to enter myself, because for whatever reason, I desperately, desperately need this thing. I need it. I NEED IT.

[ BBG ]

We wrote about Sega’s Dream Cat Venus back in January, when details were still sketchy about the robotic pet replacement. Looks like details are still sketchy, but it’s confirmed to be shipping by the end of the month, and for less than we thought, at about $110. I’m sure it will have all the artificial mewing and purring and yowling you can handle. Oh, and the brain wave thing? This picture showed up in the Sega Toys press release:

I have no idea what it means, but that woman has a Dream Cat in her lap, what looks like some EEG sensors on her skull, and there’s a weird graphic to accompany it. My entirely baseless conclusion is that the Dream Cat Venus can read, and possibly feed off of, your brain waves. It is also possible that the Dream Cat Venus can in fact alter your brain waves and make you buy more Dream Cat Venuses. Is it likely that any of this is even remotely true? Nope. Should you panic anyway? Sure, why not!

You can pre-order Dream Cat Venus from GeekStuff4U for about $140. Yeah, it’s a mark up, but that’s what you pay to get these robot goodies from Japan here in the states.

[ Press Release (In Japanese) ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

This little penguin, called MyDeskFriend, is sort of like the robotic love child of a Furby and a Nabaztag (just picture that). It’s designed to wander around your desk, responding to simple voice commands and using IR sensors to follow your finger and edge sensors to keep itself from committing suicide. An accelerometer allows it to react to poking and prodding in various ways, and light up eyes convey different emotions.

The specific appeal of MyDeskFriend (besides its robopenguin-ness, which we all know is a winner) is that it can connect to the internet, specifically to Facebook, and keep you abreast of the all of the OMG status updates made by your friends. It can read updates and instant messages to you directly using its robot penguin voice, and it’ll also ingest basic RSS feeds (like weather) as well as email and calendar alerts. Slightly less fun (depending on what you call “fun”) is that MyDeskFriend acts rather like a Tamagotchi, demanding “food” and “walks” and stuff like that. No word on whether or not it’ll die if you neglect it.

It’s a whole bunch of features in a cute little penguiny package, and it should be available in September for $99.

[ MyDeskFriend ] VIA [ GetRobo ]

This is a full size Gundam. Why? Because Japan, that’s why. Now stop asking awkward questions and just marvel at the fact that someone saw fit to cause this thing to exist:

VIA [ Pink Tentacle ] and [ Gizmodo ]