Straight out of Japan comes the latest mobile robot to ease our daily lives while threatening our jobs, Yasukawa Electric Corporation's SmartPal V. The 1.3-meter tall rolling bot is loaded with all the proximity, speech recognition, and object-detecting sensors we've come to expect from today's modern mech, along with improved dexterity thanks to additional joints and lumbar units as compared to previous models. This latest SmartPal, which was introduced at the 2007 International Robot Exhibition, also rocks its own accessories, such as a head-mounted projector to push the world's last remaining tour guides into early retirement.

[Via Engadget Chinese]

What's the world coming to? It's bad enough that everyone moves from here to there in their cars, motorcycles, personal helicopters, and human transportation devices (except for us -- we sit in front of the computer for 15 hours a day), but now it seems that the sedentary lifestyle is so prevalent, even robots are demanding their own set of wheels. You may remember Professor Oh Jun-ho's Asimo-like humanoid bot Hubo (probably better known when he sports the head of Einstein and transforms into Albert Hubo); well now Hubo has apparently gotten tired of walking around all the time, and has tasked the professor with acquiring a Segway for him to zip around on. At this point Hubo is unable to board the Segway without some help (geez, how lazy can you get?), but a software upgrade will supposedly provide him with the necessary motivation. See, you thought that our future robotic overlords would be shuffling around slowly while they round us up to toil in the silicon mines; in fact, they'll be corralling all humans at several miles-per-hour from the comfort of their Kamen-built scooters.