Do you own a rubber ducky that you use during your bath times? That is certainly something cute, as it harkens back to those pleasant and memorable childhood moments, no? Well, now that you are all grown up and have the kind of disposable income to purchase some of the stuff that you want to without having to wonder whether there is enough left over for dinner for the family or not, perhaps it is time you consider the £26.49 Dally the Singalongz Duck.
This is part of an award-winning interactive soft toy range, where Singalongz will be able to talk, sing and play with you using a special microphone. Whenever you sing or talk into the microphone, the Singalongz will then mimic what it hears, although it will do so humorously in its own inimitable voice. All you need to do is press the star on its hand to awaken it, and be entertained. There are different animals to choose from, such as Cobey the bear, Me-me the cat, and Ruftey the dog.
Do you think that our future will have robots that help mankind, such as those found in the science fiction movie I, Robot? How about droids that move around in the now Disney-owned Star Wars, those would definitely come in handy in solving the communications problem between different language groups, wouldn't it? Sad to say, current technology is still far from achieving such high standards in robotics, but perhaps something like the Roboy is a good start.
Folks over at the University of Zurich's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (AI Lab) is currently working on building a robot toddler that they have dubbed "Roboy." The implementation of "soft robotics" technology which will mimic the human body has resulted in this 1.2 meter (3 ft, 11 in) tall humanoid robot to be a solution down the road that will hopefully make people feel more comfortable in the presence of robots when it comes to day-to-day situations.
Granted, the Roboy is far from being the cutest thing in the market at the moment, as it resembles far more like a cyborg skeleton compared to a charming child whom you would like to cuddle, but bear in mind that this is because this is still a work in progress. The laboratory's final goal would be to build an entire Roboy from scratch in a matter of nine months, and I find the parallel of the time required compared to carrying a baby to term cute.
Work on Roboy began last June, where 15 project partners and more than 40 engineers and scientists came together, and they intend to fund the development of Roboy by creative means, such as auctioning space on the robot for logos, while hiring it out for business functions when completed.
Roboy remains more of a research project than an engineering enterprise at this point in time, and the team has set their eyes on developing new technologies while engaging scalable production using CAD and 3D printing so that it takes a matter of days to fully roll out a robot.
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