Whether you consider the idea of a house full of robots waiting to do your bidding a dream-come-true or a nightmare, there may be a bigger problem. Researchers now worry that the average human could be overwhelmed by the task of interacting with half-a-dozen or more automatons rolling and walking around the home. The novel solution: A core robot personality that jumps from device to device.

According to a report in New Scientist, researchers at University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, have created a single robot brain that can jump from robot-to-robot, and even computers scattered throughout the home. The benefit is that homeowners can communicate a task to the robo-butler in one interface and, even if that robot cannot accomplish the task, it can communicate with one that can, and even relay back to the owner that the task has been completed.

Other features the uni-bot-brain brings are the ability to recognize different people (I hate when they mistake me for a chair), respect personal space (no more robots goosing you) and other norms of social interaction (finally, my robots will stop picking their noses).

Trials are currently underway in two story home in the UK. You can see more in the video at New Scientist's site.

Microsoft's Project Natal took a step away from the stage and closer to the living room when Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan and Mark Wilson took the system for a test drive.

While the preview did consist of some of the same style of tech demos we saw on Monday, the exciting part involved playing Burnout Revenge, an existing 360 game, with the system. The game was able to run even with Natal's processing overhead, controlled via an air steering wheel and moving feet forward and backward to represent the gas.

Despite their dedicated efforts to get the system to hiccup, Gizmodo was impressed with the device, commenting on how natural and polished the experience felt. Despite the usual pre-production glitches, Natal seems ready to take on the gaming world whenever it comes out. Video after the jump.

Still swooning over this week's drawn-on-an-iPhone New Yorker cover? Got some empty wall space to fill? Jorge Columbo, the New-York based artist who created the magazine cover with the Brushes app for iPhone, currently has four different works for sale at 20x200, an online art gallery specializing in limited-edition art you can afford. 

All four pieces--iSketch 084, iSketch 98, iSketch 104, and iSketch 140--were originally drawn on Columbo's iPhone and depict various scenes in New York City. Printed on cotton rag paper in limited-edition runs, the works are available in three different sizes at three different prices: 8"x10" for $20, 11"x14" for $50, and 16"x20" for $200.

Pick one up at 20x200.com.

Seiko Epson Corp. announced yesterday that it's made an important step toward realizing bigger and better HD OLED TVs.

OLED televisions offer high contrast, a wide viewing angle, and fast response time, all with low power requirements. The tricky part to the larger screens is in the manufacturing: Mass production is impossible when using conventional methods to deposit the organic materials layer evenly.

Epson's new fabrication process uses Micro Piezo inkjet technology to enable accurate positioning of the organic material, making 37-inch and larger OLED screens possible. The company's prototype OLED displays 38 pixels per inch on a 40-inch diagonal screen with 260,000 colors.

Look for the announcement, a prototype demo, and more details at SID 2009.

As any iPod owner can attest, earbud-style headphones are compact, discreet, and notoriously tangle-prone. Which is why this clever concept makes perfect sense.

By attaching a run-of-the-mill zipper to a pair of equally run-of-the-mill earbuds, designer Ji Woong has created genius Zipper Headphones that can be zipped up when not in use, thereby preventing the dreaded headphone tangle. 

Here's hoping this zippy little prototype makes it to production.

[via Design Milk]

Over the years, we've searched high and low for the craziest tech to sate your gear-craving jones. We call it "the Relentless Pursuit of Awesomeness." Today, I call your attention to Honeywell and the Prestige, a thermostat so technically advanced that it just slapped your thermostat in the face. For starters, it has a full color, high definition, touch-screen interface that just screams expensive. It's also programmable, and you can control it wirelessly (using Honeywell's RedLink technology).

But what the company's really stoked about is the interview-based set-up technology: Once installed in your wall and hooked into your home heating, cooling, and dehumidifying (is that a word?) systems, the Prestige's patented interface will program itself after walking you through a series of preference questions. "You like it hot? How's that? You want maybe some cool air in the bedroom?" It goes almost without saying that it can display outdoor temperature information, allows for different thermal zones, and can be scheduled to turn on and off. Did I mention that this thing speaks three different languages as well? It makes human beings look bad.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Honeywell thinks the Prestige will actually save you money too. According to the product brochure, "On average, heating and cooling costs make up 50% of your utility bill, and we all know that energy costs keep skyrocketing. Because the Prestige Comfort System automatically manages your home's temperature to maximize savings, you can cut your annual heating and cooling costs by up to 33% - or by $200 or more each year."

Luxury puts up a good fight, but necessity is still the true mother of invention. Innovations in assistive technology, such as Bluetooth hearing aids and Braille-input PDAs, are helping the physically and mentally disabled and impaired keep pace with our increasingly tech-dependent world--at least, for those who can afford them! Here's a look at some of the latest tech products for people with visual disabilities.

GW Micro makes a portable notetaker called the Braille Sense Plus, pictured above, that lets users input text using a Perkins keyboard--six keys that correspond to the six Braille dots, plus Space, Backspace, and Line Space keys. The device can then output messages via synthesized speech or its 32-cell Braille pad; the dots move up and down to produce scrolling lines of text.

With these features, even those with total blindness have access to email, MSN Messenger, word processing (with formatting), an address manager, a media player, and more. The 2-pound device goes for $5,995 (street). The Voice Sense, a smaller PDA without the Braille pad, weighs just over half a pound and costs $2,395.

More after the jump.

Back in November of 2007, Microsoft filed for a patent on a device known as the "Magic Wand." The patent, which was filed roughly a year after the release of Nintendo's gesture-based Wii console, was just recently made public.

The abstract description of Microsoft's device is as follows,

The claimed subject matter relates to an architecture that can facilitate rich interaction with and/or management of environmental components included in an environment. The architecture can exist in whole or in part in a housing that can resemble a wand or similar object. The architecture can utilize one or more sensor from a collection of sensors to determine an orientation or gesture in connection with the wand, and can further issue an instruction to update a state of an environmental component based upon the orientation. In addition, the architecture can include an advisor component to provide contextual and/or comprehensive guidance in an intuitive manner.

There are plenty of theories surrounding the proposed application for such a device, including a Wiimote-like controller previous referred to as Newton. The patent includes the names of a number of Microsoft bigwigs, including Zune/Xbox-daddy J Ballard and Andy Wilson, one of the heads of Microsoft's Surface project.

One day, we'll all have armless, boxy, nagging robots in the home to remind us to take our meds and that it's time to watch Jeopardy! This is the dream behind GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.'s CareBot personal robot.

Under development for over a decade, the CareBot prototype is a mobile automaton that can easily, if very slowly, navigate among people and objects. It'll follow grandma around the house, let other families watch her from afar (via internet-based video teleconferencing) and contact someone on the outside if grandma falls down and can't get up. According to GeckoSystem company execs, it can also operate for up to 14 hours on a single charge.

One of the best things about Google is, for better or worse, the company seemingly has no sense of technological limits. Be it sending people into space for the X-Prize or offering rural Wi-Fi via weather balloons, the company is not afraid to test its own limits.

Back in early 2007, the company filed a patent application for barge-based data centers, which use the water both to cool and power themselves. The application, which was granted on Tuesday, outlines datacenters based three to seven miles off shore in 50 to 70 meter deep water. The ocean's waves generate electricity that powers the data centers. There seems to be a good deal of doubt whether the company would ever actually utilize the technology, but heck, it's Google, so you never know...

General Electric today announced a new technology it says is capable of fitting 100 DVDs worth of information onto a single standard disc. According to the company, the technology is still in early development. G.E. is looking for ways to produce it at cost effective prices.

The technology, according to The New York Times, utilizes holographic storage. Says the paper,

The data is encoded in light patterns that are stored in light-sensitive material. The holograms act like microscopic mirrors that refract light patterns when a laser shines on them, and so each hologram's recorded data can then be retrieved and deciphered.

"The price of storage per gigabyte is going to drop precipitously," G.E. Scientist Brian Lawrence said of the technology.

Pop open the champagne and pour your hardworking robot vacuum a glass--it's now a Robot Hall of Fame Inductee.

iRobot's seven-year-old Roomba is one of five in the class of 2010 inductees into the Robot Hall of Fame, along with NASA's Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the DaVinci Medical Robot System, Huey, Dewey and Louie from the 1971 Bruce Dern film "Silent Running and the T-800 Terminator from James Cameron's 1984 film "The Terminator". A brainchild of the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, the Hall of Fame, according to a university spokesman, "recognizes excellence in robotics technology worldwide and honors the fictional and real robots that have inspired and embodied breakthrough accomplishments in robotics."

Here's a concept device I think everyone can get behind: At Yanko Designs, a team of four designers are showcasing this Braille ebook reader. According to Seon-Keun Park, Byung-Min Woo, Sun-Hye Woo and Jin-Sun Park, the concept for driving the technology is already here--all that's needed is a friendly neighborhood investor to toss some money their way.

Electroactive polymers are used to create different letter configurations when the pages are turned. You can find more information--and more shots of the proposed device--here.

Ugobe, the Idaho-based consumer robotics company that brought the world Pleo, the adorable robotic dinosaur, is extinct. The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy this week, according to a report in the Idaho Statesman. Ugobe unveiled Pleo to great attention and acclaim almost three years ago, but delays and the lack of further development beyond the initial rollout of the robotic dinosaur may have hampered the business. In recent years, Ugobe changed leadership and moved from its California-based offices to Idaho. Pleo was always manufactured in Hong Kong.

Perhaps the most sophisticated consumer robot since Sony's AIBO robot dog (Sony stopped selling them in 2006), Pleo charmed reviewers and consumers when it finally arrived in stores in 2007. With cartoon looks, a puppy-like personality that developed over-time and a web site where you could download personality enhancements and interact with other Pleo owners, the Ugobe creation looked poised for success. At the time, Ugobe execs promised that Pleo would be just the first of many Life Forms. The product certainly had the pedigree for success: Furby creator Caleb Chung helped design it and was front and center during the product launch.

However unlike WowWee, which sells robot toys (that lack the ability to learn or change over time) for well under $200, Ugobe's Pleo listed for $349. That steep price and Pleo's painfully slow locomotion, lack of features like a camera, speaking voice (it could make sounds), and remote control may have hindered its adoption.

In the end, it's another promising consumer robot that failed to live up to and beyond expectations. With some companies pulling back on research and development, one has to wonder if we'll ever see another product like it.

We take a loving look back after the jump.

Epson, along with partners Impressx and Engage, has unveiled a multi-touch screen interactive desktop at the UK's Gadget Show Live, according to Vnunet.com. The 52-inch X-Desk uses projectors--a natural fit for Epson, who sells a ton of the things--to transform a surface into an interactive display. The idea is to "[blur] the lines between the physical and virtual worlds, allowing people to physically interact with digital content such as photos, videos, documents, maps and information," according to the company.

Here's how it works: place an MP3 player, a cell phone, or other device on the surface, and the X-Desk gives you immediate access to whatever media is contained in the device. Users can also move media around on the surface. The report said that the system consists of a rear-projection screen, a camera, a PC with custom software, optical sensors that register and interpret touches on the surface, and an Epson 3LCD projector. No word yet if the company plans to produce the X-Desk, but it probably won't be any time soon.