Miss Baillie's invention solves one of the biggest problems in veterinary medicine. That is, once your hand is up an cow's butt you can't really see anything you're doing. Now, with robotic organs and a monitor, she can teach students exactly what they should (and definitely should not) be grabbing.

On a related note, Miss Baillie claims she is also working on a 'Haptic Horse.' Kent Smith may well have some ideas for her, as evidenced by this September Photoshop Contest entry:
If you'd like to be put in touch, Miss Baille, please let me know. [Wired]

Toyota's delivery bot uses stereoscopic vision and laser rangefinders and speech recognition to find its way through a sea of cubicles. [Plastic Pals via UberGizmo]

Send your best entries to me at contests@gizmodo.com with Bionic Upgrades in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Send your work to me by next Tuesday morning, and I'll pick three top winners and show off the rest of the best in our Gallery of Champions. Get to it!

Google and the Phantom Town of Argleton

For ages, map makers have protected their own maps by adding little landmarks and towns that don't exist, sort of a hiding-in-plain-sight watermark. Well, the Telegraph UK reported that it had spotted one such town in a Google Map, which was using Tele Atlas data. Argleton, in Lancashire, simply doesn't exist, even though you can plainly see it. What happened? Apparently, the name was quite possibly sucked up with other data when Tele Atlas' map makers were busy inputting info from old maps. This isn't unusual, though you'd think there'd be a more rapid fact checking process. By the way, we didn't cover it because nowadays, the story isn't really whether or not Tele Atlas is stealing maps from old dead cartographers, but whether or not Google is stealing the map business from Tele Atlas. [Telegraph UK via Valleywag]

10 Years of Steve Jobs' Apple Product Unveilings

MacLife created a choppy but thorough video of Steve Jobs unveiling everything from the original CRT iMac to the video-camera equipped iPod Nano, with bits of Schiller thrown in out of necessity. It's a fun encyclopedic romp (though I'm sure some of you can tell me what's missing). The biggest reason we didn't post it? We didn't want to be sued for all the fanboys who suffered heart attacks—or the ones who maybe escaped cardiac arrest but came away with Teen Wolf palms. [MacLife via 9to5Mac]

AT&T's Foray Into In-Car Satellite TV Goes Miserably Wrong

After four months up and running, the CruiseCast satellite-TV service for cars bit the dust hard, with refunds and paid un-installations going out to current subscribers. What was AT&T and its partner, RaySat, thinking when they launched it? $1300 up front and no major sports channels or adult programming to speak of? That just doesn't—excuse me, didn't—make sense. Good thing zero point zero readers fell for it. Right guys? [Engadget]

Robots Will Soon Learn How to Smell Fear

Just as drug-sniffing dogs can be replaced by machines that aren't so prone to smack addiction, scientists are developing sensors—nowhere near ready but due in 2012—that home in on the pheromone released when people experience stress or fear. Like what Leslie Nielsen must have felt when he got that call from OJ, asking about the Naked Gun 10-year reunion. [PopSci]

Here's how it works in a nutshell:

- light sensors read the falling notes (brightness set to max)
- light data is sent to an Arduino Mega, which is monitoring for data spikes
- The Arduino filters the data, and sets a threshold for "on" and "off"
- an "on" means the tiny robot finger presses the screen
- the capacitive touchscreen requires a human touch to operate, so a rudimentary Xacto knife/copper wire workaround was created. Simply hold the knife while the robot plays, and the current is enough to trick the iPhone

The code is available for download, should you want to help the robots spread their lifeless 87% accuracy music around the globe. Update: You're right, eagle-eyed commenters. The result is in fact 87%. We're safe! [OhBowz via Boing Boing]

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And please, be safe!

In other words, AIDA is like your highway helper. A robot pal you can bond with on those long lonely trips. Kind of like a naggy, whiny version of Kitt.

To identify the set of goals the driver would like to achieve, AIDA analyses the driver's mobility patterns, keeping track of common routes and destinations. AIDA draws on an understanding of the city beyond what can be seen through the windshield, incorporating real-time event information and knowledge of environmental conditions, as well as commercial activity, tourist attractions, and residential areas.

"When it merges knowledge about the city with an understanding of the driver's priorities and needs, AIDA can make important inferences," explains Assaf Biderman, associate director of the SENSEable City Lab. "Within a week AIDA will have figured out your home and work location. Soon afterwards the system will be able to direct you to your preferred grocery store, suggesting a route that avoids a street fair-induced traffic jam. On the way AIDA might recommend a stop to fill up your tank, upon noticing that you are getting low on gas," says Biderman. "AIDA can also give you feedback on your driving, helping you achieve more energy efficiency and safer behavior."

Oh, and did I mention that it emotes with facial expressions? I have plenty of relatives that are perfectly willing to bitch about my driving as it is. On the other hand, maybe AIDA will qualify a an additional passenger on HOV lanes—then maybe it can tag along.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — MIT researchers and designers are developing the Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA) - a new in-car personal robot that aims to change the way we interact with our car. The project is a collaboration between the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab, MIT's SENSEable City Lab and the Volkswagen Group of America's Electronics Research Lab.

"With the ubiquity of sensors and mobile computers, information about our surroundings is ever abundant. AIDA embodies a new effort to make sense of these great amounts of data, harnessing our personal electronic devices as tools for behavioral support," comments professor Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Lab. "In developing AIDA we asked ourselves how we could design a system that would offer the same kind of guidance as an informed and friendly companion."

AIDA communicates with the driver through a small robot embedded in the dashboard. "AIDA builds on our long experience in building sociable robots," explains professor Cynthia Breazeal, director of the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab. "We are developing AIDA to read the driver's mood from facial expression and other cues and respond in a socially appropriate and informative way."

AIDA communicates in a very immediate way: with the seamlessness of a smile or the blink of an eye. Over time, the project envisions that a kind of symbiotic relationship develops between the driver and AIDA, whereby both parties learn from each other and establish an affective bond.

To identify the set of goals the driver would like to achieve, AIDA analyses the driver's mobility patterns, keeping track of common routes and destinations. AIDA draws on an understanding of the city beyond what can be seen through the windshield, incorporating real-time event information and knowledge of environmental conditions, as well as commercial activity, tourist attractions, and residential areas.

"When it merges knowledge about the city with an understanding of the driver's priorities and needs, AIDA can make important inferences," explains Assaf Biderman, associate director of the SENSEable City Lab. "Within a week AIDA will have figured out your home and work location. Soon afterwards the system will be able to direct you to your preferred grocery store, suggesting a route that avoids a street fair-induced traffic jam. On the way AIDA might recommend a stop to fill up your tank, upon noticing that you are getting low on gas," says Biderman. "AIDA can also give you feedback on your driving, helping you achieve more energy efficiency and safer behavior."

AIDA was developed in partnership with Audi, a premium brand of the Volkswagen Group, and the Volkswagen Group of America's Electronics Research Lab. The AIDA team is directed by Professor Cynthia Breazeal, Carlo Ratti, and Assaf Biderman. The SENSEable City Lab team includes team leader Giusy di Lorenzo and includes Francisco Pereira, Fabio Pinelli, Pedro Correia, E Roon Kang, Jennifer Dunnam, and Shaocong Zhou. The Personal Robots Group's technical and aesthetic team includes Mikey Siegel, Fardad Faridi and Ryan Wistort as well as videographers Paula Aguilera and Jonathan Williams. Chuhee Lee and Charles Lee represent the Volkswagen Group of America's Electronics Research Lab.

[MIT]

It runs C on an Axon microcontroller. It uses all digital servos and can lift over twice its body weight. The software (soon to be given out open source) allows for 6 synchronous degrees of motion. Future additions will include foot sensors and a remote control option.

Based on that info, and other nuggets gleaned from the Trossen Robotics forums, you might be able to have a bot of your own ready for next year. Or, better yet, put a Santa head on top of that thing and march it out in the living room on Christmas morning. Your kids are sure to have suppressed memories of it that will bubble up to the surface years and years from now causing a dramatic and crippling meltdown. Priceless. [Trossen via DIY Drones via Boing Boing]

You plug it into your computer and load it up with the vector art of your choosing, hang it up on a string on the surface you want to draw on, and let it do its things. If it's sold as a kit, it'll be a couple hundred bucks and will require a bit of soldering, but it seems like a great way to add some cheap art to the blank wall of your choice. [Muralizer via Make]

Aside from supposedly being the fastest runner and best jumper among similarly constructed robots, ROPID also responds to voice commands, with either action and speech. It's so talented and cute that I don't even suspect it could have an evil side, but I guess we'll see about that when it turns into a Christmas must-have toy seasons from now. [Robot Watch via Dvice]

Of course, looking at these videos it is plain to see the Mr. Wake is a moron. I'm pretty sure I could capture him even when my eyes are half open and I'm stumbling around the room. Still, it's a good proof of concept. Perhaps you can use Vadim Ryazanov's notes on the build to make Mr. Wake more elusive—although I have no earthly idea why you would want to torture yourself like this. [Let's Make Robots via Make]

Basically the the virtopsy bot (yes, "Virtibot") manipulates and dots the body with markings in order to measure and take a bunch of stereo images with its array of cameras. While the external structure and markings of a body are being documented, a CT scan takes care of the innards. The final 3D image is created which pathologists then use and abuse without worrying about deforming a deceased body. If need be, the Virtibot can use a needle to extract fluid or perform minimally intrusive biopsies.

Aside from being far neater than a traditional autopsy, virtual autopsies allow for archiving of the 3D bodies for later medical analysis or case comparison in the event of criminal trials. Not to mention that there'd never be another "Oops, I didn't mean to make that incision" hilarious coroner moment again. [New Scientist via Pop Sci]

Actually, the similarity is not surprising considering that the walking robot was designed by Boston Dynamics—the same company behind BigDog. Petman has been in development for some time now, but this is the first chance we have had to view his human-like stride. The military plans on using it to test out protective clothing for soliders that need to be completely protective and not strain or open up under any sort of human articulated movement. It's capable of crawling, as well as walking at 3.2 MPH.

And like the Big Dog, it can keep its balance when you shove it.

[Danger Room]

Designed by Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler, the Infinite Loop has been pieced together without mortar, one brick at a time since late September. A remarkable feat of robo-accuracy for sure, but we already know that these industrial robots are capable of some pretty amazing things. Plus, this bricklayer doesn't break for lunch or catcall women on the street. [Storefront News via Fast Company]

Which is to say it's creepy in a not-even-uncanny way, averse to even the friendliest Labradors, prone to all but the daintiest Enhanced Interrogation, terrifyingly cyborgian under its soft dermis, and stickered with $350 price.

Love it or hate it (or more realistically, don't quite understand it), the Pleo has officially relaunched under the umbrella of the decidedly not-plush Innvo Labs Corporation, and is available immediately. [Pleo via RobotRule]

Interestingly enough, there are several technologies depicted in the series that have actually come to fruition (although they are heavily cloaked in a LSD meets The Jetsons meets Lost in Space kind of style). See if you can pick them out of the gallery posted at Pink Tentacle. [Pink Tentacle]

In a survey of brand names dropped in the tweets and facials (is that the right term?) of today's social-networking mavens, Google came out primero, with Apple at #2, and Microsoft at #3. (Blackballed fans would know that Apple is #2 because it's the shit, but anyway...) The funny part is what didn't make the top 10: HP is there, but Dell is not; BMW yes, but Mercedes, nope; I see a Samsung, but I do not see Sony. As unscientific as this study by Sysomos is, it must tell us something. [AppleInsider]

Wired wrote up MIT roboticist Sangbae Kim, father of the gecko-inspired Stickybot. His new plan? To make a robot that looks like a cheetah—and runs as fast as one. Yep, he's saying his carbon-fiber quadruped will hit 70 mph. Trouble is, this is all chalkboard chatter: It'll take 18 months for Kim and his colleagues to whip up prototypes of this evil-looking dude, so we have to wait to find out if he was right or nuts. [Wired]

NPR today showed off a product that will hopefully soon come free with a donation to listener-supported radio. I say that not just as a fan of listener-supported radio, but as someone who would never specifically buy an NPR-branded radio. It aggregates all of NPR's affiliates under one button, and offers on-demand streams of Terry Gross and other awesome NPR folks, but none of this is exclusive to this device. Charitable notions aside, this makes no more sense than an NBC-branded TV (that also lets me watch Fox). [CNet]

Having spent my whole life in the northern parts of these United States, I have always assumed that it's up to the sunnier parts to get with the solar-power program. At least San Diego sees the logic of this, and is going all in with alternative power. UC San Diego and CleanTECH San Diego are building a smart grid, which puts power back into the system when claimed from solar panels and other alternative sources. The school will produce 3.4 megawatts of renewable energy by next year, while San Diego Gas & Electric pledged to get 33% of its power from renewable sources by 2020. Maybe when they get over 100%, they can share the excess sunlight with those of us stuck in Cloudyville. [Treehugger; Image credit slack12/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

Through a simple program, ABB's precise industrial robots are able to maintain tolerances tighter than 1mm—even at super speeds. As our own Brian Lam noted: "it's like the robot equivalent of chewing bubble gum and patting your head and rubbing your stomach." [ABB via BotJunkie]

You see, in the future, when we're flying around in cars and Will Smith is saving us from over-protective robots, the dishes will wash themselves.

Case in point, in the video this robot/video camera contraption has magic hands that grip, wash, dump out and otherwise do all the things I had planned on forcing my kids to do after dinner in the future.

Panasonic is also working on a robot load lifter that converts into a motorized wheelchair, which will be perfect for all those elderly folks in the future who double as deliverymen. [Impress via Engadget]

By using lasers and 3D cameras, the team built a vision engine that can very accurately define the helicopter's surrounding environment. That's only part of the trick to getting it to fly so well, the other half is some pretty sweet flight path correction. Think of it like a flying Big Dog. Check out what happens when the guy pokes it with a stick.

Hopefully no one sticks a spinning blade on this thing. Wouldn't want that flying through my window at night. [MIT Tech TV via Engadget]

Perfect for your next Cosplay or Furry get-to-together, the mood cards will make the bushy tail wag about in pre-programmed ways. Alternatively, a Wii Nunchuck is used to shake things up with manual control.

Thank you, Wei-Chieh Tseng, I'm completely lost for words, and that doesn't happen often. [Nowhereelse via Engadget]

The design, however, is pretty. It also makes sense:

Robot is created for gathering rubbish from street territories of shopping centers. Robot can gather big rubbish using manipulators. Two web cameras and sensing length element help to make estimate of the territory and find where the rubbish is. Scope of small rubbish creates by two diagonal sweeper-collectors, that sweep just close to the edge. Tank is put away from robot automatically.

It would be nice to see it implemented. New York, for example, needs a few hordes of these robots. [Coroflot via Treehugger]

The 10-cm long DASH, which stands for Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod, weighs only 16 grams, yet is able to run 15 times its body length per second. It has a uniquely flexible design from nearly all sides that allows it to survive pretty much anything, including a drop eight stories above the ground. It's actually made of what's basically laminated cardboard, which means it's a very cheap robot to build as well. Check out the video—this thing is crazy. [Thanks, Aaron!]

Check out the video for a run-through of the machine, and a demonstration of the robot making the only drink it knows.

Hopefully the Barbot becomes self aware soon and decides to expand the selection. [Bre Pettis via IEEE Spectrum]

Oh ED, you're a lifesaver! A general who lead an infantry division in Iraq recently said that of the 155 men killed in combat, 122 could have lived if autonomous robots were doing the shooting instead. (Strangely, the other 33 would have died whether robots were around or not.) Replacing infantrymen with robots is a no brainer if you want to save your own boys, but Smokey from The Big Lebowski would probably say if nothing did the killing, even more lives would be spared. [Wired]

Am I reading this right? Slashdot says the entire domain .se—a million souls, I mean sites—up and vanished from the internet. Some didn't deliver successful replies for more than a day. Maybe I need to call Tim Berners-Lee for interpretation, but I don't get why more people aren't freaked out that an entire country up and disappeared, even if it was just for a moment. [Slashdot]

[Edit: This has been one of the most traumatic moments in my life. J.D.]

Someone did a comprehensive study of 836 people to see how people managed to keep username/password logins straight in their head. The test noted that only 4.4% of people showed no "deviations" from the ideal password rules, deviations including jotting down the password, reusing it time and again, using a deliberately short password or—and here's probably where most people failed-having no mix of characters and symbols. Having "best practices" that insanely rigid probably upped the failure rate substantially, but I think the important thing here—as Ars points out—is that the username/password system is a joke to begin with. [Ars Technica]

The 23-year-old guy who founded the International Church of Jediism obviously needs to watch Star Wars a few more times. The other day, he wore his hood into a supermarket and got yelled at something fierce. His very Jedi response? To run to the press and cry like a little bitch:

They said: 'Take it off', and I said: 'No, its part of my religion. It's part of my religious right.' I gave them a Jedi church business card.

No lightsabers, no waving of the hand in the air, not even "Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!" Just a business card? He continues:

They weren't listening to me and were rude. They had three people around me. It was intimidating.

"Intimidating"? For a Jedi? Just remember, intimidation leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Don't look now, but I think someone's headed for the Dark Side. [Guardian UK]

That is sexy. Jammable slurry. Wow, a little hot under the collar here. This really is nuts."

It is really nuts indeed: A shape-shifting robot blob that can squeeze through cracks. Sounds familiar? Of course it does. But clearly, this iRobot and Darpa researchers don't read or watch any Sci-Fi material whatsoever.

In any case, ladies and gentlemen, it has been a pleasure and a privilege writing for you. Now, enjoy the rest of your lives. They won't last much more. [JWZ via Make]

Then my half-blinded eyes noticed something obvious: The human legs on the first dinosaur, which I guess is half-puppet, half-animatronics. The other two are completely animatronics, but if I saw any of these coming my way in the middle of a dark street, I would run the other way, screaming like a little girl. Which, incidentally, it's exactly how I scream all the time. [Dark Roasted Blend]

One of a fantastic set of images Life has round up of sci-fi tin toy boxes from the 1950s, back when robots still looked like robots and flying cars were just a few decades away. [Life]

It appears that Zaojun would have a tactile surface which you can rub to turn it on (yes, lewd joke intended). According to the designer, the receiver is made out of a Kevlar membrane which allows it "to answer your calls or listen to music." I also assume the integrated Bluetooth helps with this. You should be able to control the guy remotely with its router of sorts. It has some wireless charging capabilities, too.

It doesn't appear that Zaojun is coming anytime soon, but it looks and sounds mighty cool. In the meantime, I guess there is always those real life personal assistants that do more than just sit on your desk. [Coroflot via Design Blog]

Measuring 60 feet tall and weighing in at 50 tons, just pray that a lightning bolt doesn't strike the giant robot, lest he develop a consciousness before doing movie/TV impressions all day long.

[Robot Watch via CrunchGear]

You're in luck if you're hoping to terrorize small animals and stream the results the Web: it has a programmable 1.3-megapixel CMOS camera and built-in Wi-Fi. And you get the usual stuff for the PC side of things, like a VGA output for a monitor, and USB ports for a keyboard and mouse...

That all sounds good until you see the 15-inch tall mini PC uses a 3 axis accelerometer and two 2 axis gyro sensors to move about. Those don't come cheap. In fact, bragging rights will set you back 400,000 Yen (about $4,500). Yeah, you read that right. For that sort of MIT-only style money, I'd want it to at least mix my cocktails…or make me bacon and eggs in the morning. Sheesh. [Vstone Store via Plastic Pals]

Physical therapists and mechanical engineers joined forces to create robots that allow babies with disabilities to move around. The robots controlled by a joystick that's simple enough for a one year old to use.

The chair is unlike a regular adult motorized chair, since it has sensors and a remote control feature that's usable by parents to help kids ride around. All in all, pretty awesome. [Vodpod via ABClocal]