TwendyOne
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Robot with soft hands can prepare meals, gently enslave humanity
Sure, this ET-looking robot from Japan called "Twendy-One" looks adorable, but that doesn't mean we trust it -- even if it does boast hands gentle enough to grip bread and enough smarts to respond to greetings and serve breakfast. Designer Shigeki Sugano says Twendy-One is "the first robot in the world with this much system integration," and the five-foot tall, 245-pound bot doesn't pack all that tech in there on the cheap -- several million dollars have gone into development over the past seven years. The team is hoping to get costs down to $200,000 by 2010, but first they need to extend Twendy-One's 15 minute battery life and sort out some heat issues. We're willing to give them all the time they want -- anything to delay the inevitable toast-bearing robot apocalypse.[Via Washington Post]
