The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies fielded a poll last week asking people to respond to the following question: “If you had a personal robot that could do only one thing, which ability would you prefer it to have?” The results, as you can see above, put sexbots in a close second only to house cleaning robots, with everything else notably uninteresting to very many of the 500 respondents.

Personally, I’d like to know why the robot has to be a sex “slave” as opposed to a willing participant in a mutually satisfactory sexual relationship. Also, it’s curious to me that people are equally interested in having a robot that does their work for them, as they are in having a robot that replaces (traditionally) another human. Anyway, we told you so.

[ IEET ] VIA [ io9 ]

“Controlling the forces of nature has been a dream of humankind since time immemorial. With the CyberKite, Festo is meeting this challenge as part of the Bionic Learning Network and is developing a kite system with a cybernetic control unit.”

Why? Because robot penguin, that’s why!

But seriously, I have no idea, besides that it’s an interesting project to tackle… Although come to think of it, I suppose it could have some commercial applications, too.

[ Festo ]

If these weren’t already sold out, I’d be all over them. At $45 each (there’s a set of 6), these 6.5″ tall ‘Bertie Mk2′ figurines are beautifully battle scarred in that way that made Wall-E so endearing. More pics:

As I said, the pre-order is entirely sold out, but hopefully these robot toys will become available again in January.

[ Tenacious Toys ] VIA [ Boing Boing ]

It’s not as cool as this shirt, but it is potentially safer to wear out in public. And, you know, it’s better for those of you who love robots but don’t love robots. $15.

[ Neatorama Shop ]

We keep talking about those small touches that can give even the least outwardly human robot a human personality, and a non-creepy one at that. Shimon, a marimba playing robot capable of improv, has been upgraded with a head and the ability to “headbang,” which makes him exponentially more expressive, as you can see from the video. It’s not just to look cool, either… In order for Shimon to be an effective participant in improvisational music, such visual cues are important. Or so I’m told. I don’t know about you, but I was headbanging right along with him after 5 seconds or so.

To listen to some of the music that Shimon makes, check out our post about him from last April here.

[ Shimon ]

Do you like robots? Are you in the SF Bay Area, or anywhere else with cash to burn and/or a private jet? Combots Cup IV is the weekend after next (December 19th and 20th) at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds <. Unlike RoboGames, which has a whole bunch of different types of events, Combots Cup is all about combat, combat, popcorn and cotton candy, and combat, ranging from 30 to 340 pound robots.

If you can't make it, BotJunkie will be there for ya, but if you're anywhere within 24,901.55 miles of the fairgrounds, you have no excuse. Tickets are on sale now, here.

[ Combots Cup ] VIA [ Suicide Bots ]

As much as I love ThinkGeek, they’re obviously not familiar with the pure geek awesomeness that is combat robotics. I propose a new Rule 4:

A Geek May Not Injure A Robot Or, Through Inaction, Allow A Robot To Come To Harm, Unless Said Geek Promises To Replace Harmed Components With Stronger And More Dangerous Ones.

Although, we’d need to modify it to “stronger and more dangerous and exponentially more expensive ones” if we wanted to be realistic about it… Bah, it’s cheaper to just buy the shirt for $16 and not break your robot.

Way less fun, though.

[ ThinkGeek ]

What we know: Designed by Nathaniel Mellor, these robotic heads (which look like the artist himself) can be yours for $75,000. It’s part of an installation piece called “Giantbum.”

What we don’t know: Why? Why??? WHYYY?????

[ Art | Basel ] VIA [ Engadget ]

As much as I love my Roomba, I’m under no illusions as to the scope of its autonomous capabilities . In order for Roomba to clean unsupervised, I have to do a lot of prep work at home, moving furniture and carpets and cords and stuff. A company called Robot Add-Ons, founded by a couple of guys from iRobot itself, has come up with a bunch of cheap and easy ways to completely solve some of Roomba’s more common issues.

It’s common, for example, for Roombas (or at least my Roomba) to wedge itself under things like furniture… By the time Roomba’s front bumper hits the bottom whatever it’s gotten itself underneath, it’s already too late for it to turn around. The Robot Add-Ons solution is to give your Roomba a unicorn horn: a stick-on bit of rubber up at the front bumper that causes Roomba to register sloping obstacles much earlier, giving it time to get out on its own:

Simple and effective. Other add-ons include passive barriers that work by fooling Roomba’s edge sensors, HEPA vacuum filters, and even an entire new and improved cleaning head designed specifically to handle hair. There are some demo videos, but, um, just a warning… I watched these videos and (at first) thought that they were doing a deliberate parody of an infomercial. Now I’m not so sure about the deliberate parody part. You’ll see what I mean, after the jump. (Read more…)

We first met Autom two years ago, back when she was a resident of the MIT Media Lab. Since then, she’s been significantly redesigned and her parent company, Intuitive Automata, is almost ready to unleash her upon the overweight world. Autom is sort of like your own personal weight loss coach, except she doesn’t annoy you by being human and in better shape than you are. Instead, she simply tracks your eating and exercise habits and talks to you about your daily progress. She’s able to figure out what works best for you and what doesn’t, adapting to your needs as they change. And she does a good job, apparently: people using Autom to help with their weight loss will keep to a diet and exercise routine for twice as long as people using more traditional methods.

Autom will be made available in a limited trial in Q2 of next year, and wider sales should start around the end of 2010. There’s no word on how much she’ll cost, but honestly, my guess is that it’s not going to be horrific like most household robots with heads (not that many of those are anywhere close to availability). Autom doesn’t really have any complicated sensors or moving parts (as is the case with mobile robots), which minimizes both hardware and software development costs. Also, the fact that she is twice as effective as traditional weight loss methods is good, but it’s not enough to justify a high price tag. So, we’ll see.

There is one other thing, though… I’m kinda left wondering what happens when Autom works well enough that you don’t need her anymore? Like, as a commercial weight loss product, if Autom is successful she also renders herself potentially unnecessary. Maybe she’s got some other tricks up her non-sleeve? With speech synthesis and an internet connection, perhaps she could read you news and weather in the morning, or act as a personal organizer. Just a thought.

Update- As the creator for Autom quite rightly points out in a comment below, Autom will also help you keep the weight off over time. I just think that while Autom’s focus is on weight control, as a platform, she is (potentially) capable of many other useful things.

[ Autom ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]