NextGenerationComputingShow2006
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IZI Robotics' CUBO reads books to kids, teaches English
We're pretty sure the CUBO must come from a combination of the words "cute" and "robot" (or perhaps, cueball?) because this is just the most adorable little thing that we've ever seen. IZI Robotics has just demoed this brother of Netoy at the Next Generation Computing Show 2006 in Korea, and the staff of AVING was wowed by its myriad of abilities; CUBO can read books to kids, teach English, provide "home monitoring," update the news and weather, give a wake-up call, and even comes with something called "robot mail." We're not sure what that is, but we're hoping that it isn't the sinister communications channel that we've been fearing all robots have for when they take over the world with their collective cuteness.
N.Tech headphones sing straight into your bones
We make no bones about the fact that we're not experts when it comes to audio engineering, but last we checked, headphones work pretty well when they're inserted directly into the ear. Clearly this isn't the case at the Next Generation Computing Show 2006 in Korea, where N.Tech demoed its latest front-wear (NVP200) and rear-wear (NVP100, pictured) vibration, or bone-conduction, headphones. The idea is that sound vibrates into the skull and then straight on to the auditory nerve; though if someone is blasting their iPod next to you on the train ride home, it would seem your auditory nerve is going to be getting a lot more noise than signal. Plus, constantly pressing buttons situated very near to your cerebellum and brain stem can't be a good idea, either. But we'll defer to the authorities on this one.Read - NVP200Read - NVP100
