Roboticists have come up with myriad ways for robots to get from here to there: on feet, treads, all fours, wheels, and now, a ball. That's right, one big, heavy ball and a lot of balancing let Carnegie Mellon University's Ballbot make its way around the testing labs.

The idea, said researchers, was to get past the moving-around methods used by most home, office, and institutional robots that are being developed and used today; these methods are often clumsy, and taxing, both mechanically and energy-wise.

Like Dean Kamen's Segway human transporter (which uses two wheels), Ballbot, which is being developed by CMU's Robotics Research Professor Ralph Hollis and funded by the National Science Foundation, is mostly a balancing act. The on-board computer uses sensors to maintain balance and activate rollers on top of the urethane-coated metal sphere. These rollers move the ball to keep the 5-foot-or-so robot upright and moving around the room.

I like the concept and love that researchers are constantly trying to figure out better ways to make robots move in realistic environments. Still, this brings to mind an image of a circus dog balancing on a big red ball.  When the dog is done, he jumps down and lands on his four legs. When Ballbot is stationary, he puts three legs down to give the ball and balancing act a rest. Coincidence? I think not.

Thanks to editor of reviews Lance Ulanoff for this report!

Twenty years ago, back to school shopping was very different from what it is now. That's because students aren't looking for just spiral notebooks, apparel, and backpacks; they want the latest and greatest tech products, from the Apple iPod and the Sidekick 3 to laptop bags and LCD TVs.

So what did students shop for back in 1986 versus today? PriceGrabber.com decided to compare College Essentials from 1986 to College Essentials of 2006. Here's the list:

I graduated college only three years ago, but even then there was no iPod, Bose SoundDock, Treo, or the ability to record your lectures with a music player. Three years and now look what is available to students! Technology is only going to grow at a faster rate as the years go by.

PriceGrabber.com also took a look at what products consumers are shopping for. You can check out that list and more info by checking out the press release.

The Hydrogen Z.Car is a drive-by-wire three-wheeled hybrid concept car, designed by renowned architect Zara Hadid. This imaginatively styled two-seater was commissioned by London art dealer Kenny Schachter, who hopes to put the car into limited production.

The Z.Car's shape-shifting design makes it ideal for both urban and highway driving. At low speeds (driving through cities, for example), the passenger pod rises into a higher position, giving the driver a better view of the road and making the car easier to park. At high speeds, the car lowers 10 degrees, dropping the center of gravity closer to the road for better handling.

The streamlined design of the Z.Car, with storage up front and the engine at the rear, makes the car wider in the front and smaller in the back. This is the ideal shape to maximize energy efficiency and minimize wind resistance. The car's water-drop shape is an allusion to the intended use of hydrogen fuel power in the car.

Hadid has already designed parking structures and a BMW plant using her innovative "organic language." With the Z.Car, Hadid imagined a design that would explore how a car could affect its driver's behavior. The car's asymmetric front-door hatch gives the driver panoramic forward vision, and video screens display the feed from back-mounted cameras. Occupants can even change the window tint by adjusting a current that powers thin LED film on the glass surface.

Thanks to Gizmag and Rove for the information!

To read more about concept cars, click here.

We never know what we're going to get in the mail here. Just the other day, we received a press kit from DirecTV that is made of titanium (I wouldn't joke about this!) to inform us of the company's Titanium TV service.

But don't get too excited about the DirecTV Titanium service. Sure, you'll have access to every single channel that DirecTV offers for one yearly fee--whether it's local, broadcast, pay, national, HD, or Spanish-language channels--totaling over 800 channels! That means you'll get all of the "pay" channels without paying extra:

**A "front row seat" to every Pay Per View broadcast, including boxing, concerts and Playboy
**Over 30 premium channels, including HBO and ShowTime
**NFL Sunday Ticket
**Mega March Madness, letting you watch up to four games on one screen
**MLB Extra Innings with up to 60 regular season games
**70 XM Satellite Radio channels

Plus, you'll have the privilege of 24-hour concierge customer service (too bad they don't deliver food!). Call before noon and a technician will arrive at your home the same day. Subscribers can request up to 10 HD DVRs for recording up to 20 different channels simultaneously.

You'll get all of this TV show pampering for $7,500 a year. Oh, and only a select few are entitled to a DirecTV Titanium membership. Darn! But you can call the toll-free number to find out if you're eligble.

The Subaru B9 Tribeca transports the double-wraparound cockpit design from a car of the future into today's reality. More important, this newish SUV (based on Subaru Legacy underpinnings) contains a ton of useful technology fronted by a great navigation system, and a couple of quirks (hey, it's a Subaru), starting with a front end that's reminiscent of an Alfa Romeo and rounded, almost bulbous rear corners.

On the whole, the B9 Tribeca is a successful first entry into the SUV arena by a company with modest ambitions – to be at the top of the second tier of Japanese automakers, meaning second only to the Toyota-Honda-Nissan triumvirate.

Subaru teamed up with Kenwood for navigation systems across the line, and it's a good fit; Kenwood is close to industry leaders Alpine, Xanavi, and Denso for ease of use. The high-mounted touchscreen works well, though it's a long reach for those who don't drag their knuckles. With navigation, you get a backup camera; backup sonar is available ($325), but on our car it was often fooled into false alerts, adding to an already high amount of cockpit beeps. Other technology includes vehicle stability control, traction control, intelligent all-wheel drive, and run-flat tires.

The dashboard and center stack (middle console area) constitutes a curving peninsula that separates driver from passenger with the efficiency of the good sisters working the gym at a parochial school mixer. You may like the design, or you may find it intrusive. It does give the designers more sloped space to array buttons and switchgear; this is the polar opposite of a minimalist iDrive-style cockpit.

There are plenty of entertainment options: a six-disc changer and nine speakers in the higher-end Limited Edition, XM Satellite Radio (this is the first Subaru to offer satellite), and a line-in jack. The base-model B9 Tribeca has a single-disc changer and six speakers.

At $1,800, the widescreen back-seat DVD player is not competitively priced; besides, if you lose the remote, there's no other way to control the unit. I actually peg the price at $3,500, because to pay $1,800 for a DVD player that's not much different from one that a good audio installer would charge $900 for, you must select the three-row, seven-passenger B9 Tribeca model, which runs $1,700 more than the two-row, five-passenger B9. But as we said, if the car didn't have little idiosyncrasies, it wouldn't be a Subaru.

The shorter the story, the better the B9 Tribeca fares in the hands of reviewers. Its positives are clear-cut, and the downsides are the sum of a dozen small quirks not normally worth mentioning. But how small and quirky are they?

The lettering on the steering-wheel buttons is slanted and low-contrast by day, and not well lit by night; eventually you'll learn what each button does. Then there's the tiny triangle of glass just back of the A (windshield) pillar. That's a common styling cue in an era of steeply raked windshields and thick-for-safety A-pillars, done to good effect in a Honda Civic or Toyota Prius and providing extra visibility. But Subaru's is too small to do much good. And the quick-access buttons for the nav system are on the same level vertically as the bottom of the display, but about 6 inches back on a shelf on the dash.

Every car beeps more than it should when starting out, as if you weren't nagged—correction, reinforced—enough by your parents and later in life by your spouse or partner. Subaru goes to annoying extremes: All the beeps have a similar, irritating pitch rather than a melodious chime; some come, go, and come back again (like the seat belt warning); and the backup sonar seemed easily tricked into imagining obstacles that didn't appear to be there, especially when I backed down slopes.

The whole backup sonar setup seems slapped together; the beeper module is visible and bolted into the right side of the cargo area, and the four sensors project from the back bumper, which makes them look like easy targets for a parking-lot incident. That's too bad, because sound and video together make for the safest backup experience.

Subaru's Web site, like the car itself, is no-nonsense. While there are flashy elements, Subaru.com devotes itself to the possibility that you're online because you want to buy a car, not because you want to be dazzled by animation wizardry. So the build-your-own section is straightforward, aided by the modest number of options. But the options that came on my test vehicle, a early 2007 seven-passenger B9 Tribeca, weren't listed on the site, either as options or as accessories (the latter typically meaning they'd be dealer-installed).

The owners' section has the usual excessive marketing pitches disguised as valuable owner information. Both the owner manual and navigation system manuals are online, which is more than most sites provide. If you register and enter your VIN number, Subaru can populate the site with your actual service information, something only a handful of others, such as GM, offer. That's useful. So are e-mail service reminders, though they are based on the mileage you project when you first sign up.

There's only so much you can do in an SUV that's 190 inches long. The B9 Tribeca is nicely finished inside, but the middle row is a bit snug, and the third row is for hobbits; among similar vehicles, only the Audi Q7 has a tinier, less practical third row.

A lot of equipment comes standard: stability control, full-time all-wheel drive, tire pressure monitors, a power moonroof, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and (on seven-passenger models) heated front seats.

Some may find the suspension stiff (though ground clearance is good) and the transmission indecisive. Going up hills, you definitely hear the six-cylinder, 250-horsepower engine working, and the car shifts gears repeatedly searching for a better combination.

Overall, Subaru's first SUV is a winner, if you like the styling inside and out, and don't mind a few offbeat elements. Just don't look for it to carry more than four toilet-trained people in comfort.

For a review of the Subaru Legacy, click here.

Play Slide Show/All Shots (11)

$31,320.00 - $40,300.00

A reasonable medium-large SUV with lots of tech goodies, led by the navigation system. The cockpit layout and the exterior design are a matter of taste.

Touch-screen navigation system. Backup camera and sonar. All-time four-wheel drive, good ground clearance. Stability control standard on all models. Satellite radio (finally). No-nonsense Web site.

$1,800 DVD player. Excessive beeps, exacerbated by gullible backup sonar. Oddball touchscreen prompts. Snug middle row, munchkins-only third row. Busy transmission, stiff ride. Web site doesn't map to available options.

Nikon announced it's new D80 D-SLR today, the latest in a long line of D-SLRs for the camera giant. The camera will replace the wildly popular Nikon D70s. The specs are impressive, 10.2-megapixel resolution, 2.5-inch LCD, 11-area AF system.  The ISO range is an ample 100 to 1600. And perhaps most importantly, it is compatible with a wide range of Nikkor lenses and accessories. But Nikon isn't rushing to adopt some of the new technologies that other vendors have brought to market. What is missing? As Terry Sullivan, PC Mag's Camera Analyst, sees it:  

The technologies include a Live View mode (Olympus, Panasonic), sensor-cleaning technology (Olympus, Sony), and a mechanical image-stabilization system (Panasonic's Mega O.I.S and Sony's Super SteadyShot system). Also, Olympus' Evolt E-330 includes an articulating LCD to view the Live View mode with.

The only real technology shift is moving from CompactFlash to the increasingly popular SD memory card. Big deal. No doubt, this is going to be a killer camera that takes great pictures, but it seems to lack a bit in terms of innovation. Nikon doesn't seem concerned, which is good news  for its competitors.