Philips' Smart Companion is your strange new friend

Philips — they know robots are our
friends. They dispense with all the humanoid niceties in their Smart Companion, though, thinking we'll be able to make our own inferences from this incredibly rectangular
"friend" that listens, talks, and apparently "shows a true 'personality.'" The device is connected to a computer and can pull down information over the internet in response to queries about the weather and whatnot, and can retrieve data from your PC based on request parameters. It can supposedly recognize facial expressions and body language and respond accordingly, although we have to imagine that Smart Companion's "personality" is, well, a bit square.