TOSY, a japanese toy company believes it has found a product that has been overlooked by it's toy-making competitors. Known for various robotic toys such as the R-Ball and their latest invention TOPIO, the ping-pong playing robot, the newest edition to their odd line of robotic toys is the R-Tyre. That's right! It's a robotic tire, similar to the R-Ball only tire shaped.

Christopher Aceto currently heads Thottfield Inc., a small multimedia and communications consultancy based in Toronto, Canada. Always on the hunt for innovative and exciting ideas, his passion for the creation and production of ground-breaking technologies and services has granted him the opportunity to act as a creative consultant for various companies and industries throughout the world.

Shiny Shiny: Housework: bane of everybody's lives. Fact. I mean, no one actually enjoys dusting and polishing do they? So this gadget is sure to bring much happiness: RoboMop is a battery powered 8.5 centimetre dusting machine, replete with electro static pad no less. It's a strange contraption that looks as if the design team were visited by alien spacecraft shortly before receiveing their brief, and were thus inspired to create what looks like a flying saucer crossed between a hovercraft: that cleans. Any hard surface, apparently. And with 98% accuracy too. And if you're not sold already?

Robomop: the budget robot [Shiny Shiny]

AP: Lying in his hospital room, on a mattress designed to protect his fragile skin, 13-year-old Achim Nurse poked his bandaged fingers at an orange button on what looked like a souped-up video game console.

Half a second later, in a social studies class discussing the Erie Canal, a 5-foot-tall steel-blue robot raised its hand.

"You have a question, Achim?" said the teacher.

Achim is using a pair of robots — one, called "Mr. Spike," at his bedside, and its mate, "Mrs. Candy," in the classroom — to keep up with his schoolwork and his friends for the months he will be bedridden at Blythedale Children's Hospital in Valhalla, just north of New York City.

The robot in the classroom, which displays a live picture of Achim, provides what its inventors call "telepresence": It gives the boy an actual presence in the classroom, recognized by teachers and classmates. It can move from class to class on its four-wheel base and even stop at the lockers for a between-periods chat.

"The robot literally is embraced by students in the classroom as though that is the medically fragile student," said Andrew Summa, national director of the robot project, which is in use at six other hospitals around the country. Achim's teacher, Bob Langerfield, said his other students had become used to the robot — and were treating it as if it were Achim — after just a few days.

Robots help hospitalized students keep up [AP via Yahoo!]

The Green Head: I don't think anyone likes mopping floors, but it appears that robots do! iRobot, maker of the cool robot vaccuum Roomba, have developed the perfectly named Scooba - Floor Washing Robot. The Scooba is truly a revolutionary new hard floor cleaning system. It's programmed to prep, wash, scrub and dry the floor automatically. Using the AWARE robot intelligence system, it will clean under furniture, tables and hard-to-reach places all by itself. The Scooba can clean around 150 square feet on one tank and never reuses dirty mop water. If this works, and early word says it does and well, I'll never have to mop again, not that I did anyway, but still. I can't wait to see what robot servant they come up with next.

Scooba - Floor Washing Robot by iRobot [The Green Head]

BBC News: An intelligent computer system which can imitate doctors' decisions about treatment for intensive care patients is being developed by scientists. It will monitor patients' vital signs and then evaluate and administer drugs - a job now done by specialist medics. Decisions will be made in seconds - freeing up valuable time for doctors. The system is being designed by a team of engineers at the University of Sheffield with a £400,000 grant from science funding agency EPSRC. Team leader Professor Mahdi Mahfouf said the system's ability to learn, adapt and make informed decisions was unique.

'Robo-doc' to treat seriously ill [BBC News]

Shiny Shiny: Remember those Tiny Tots talking dolls your big sister had as a child? Well Hitachi has taken a leaf out of their design book and delivered a talkative new robot Emiew, which will be displayed starting June 9 at the 2005 World Exposition, Aichi, Japan.

Apparently the robot can chat to anyone within a distance of about 1 metre after determining their location by seeing their face with a visual sensor and hearing their voice through an audio sensor. The 130cm-tall, 70kg robot is equipped with wheels allowing it to walk at a speed of 6km an hour, about the same pace as a person walking fast.

Hitachi isn’t saying anything about its vocabulary yet but we reckon it might just be a little more comprehensive than Tiny Tots repertoire of’ feed me’, ‘change my nappy’, ‘piss off down Baby Gap and buy me loads of designer tops you cheapskate.’

Hitachi's Talking Robot [Shiny Shiny]

Tech Digest: Not that we have a spare £3000 knocking around, but if we did chances are we’d invest the lot in an irobi from Yujin Robotics.

Quite the cleverest robot at CES irobi is a web based perky-looking android (there’s echoes of R2D2) that does everything from home monitoring to entertaining kids with karaoke nursery rhymes. It can wander round a home allowing its owner to check what is happening through a dedicated website, alternatively if it senses an intruder it can email images to the owner.

It also has video conferencing facilities, can recognise its owner using voice recognition technology and display internet and stored content to entertain your youngster. Most of all it looks pretty cute with its big LED smile.

Yujin also has a robot vacuum cleaner on the way in the Iclebo which uses an intelligent navigation systems (don’t they all) to zip round your home sucking up dirt. It has a much better display than rivals like the Roomba

Smiley, Happy Robots [Tech Digest]

Gizmodo: The new Robosapien V2 looks fantastic. For just 200 bucks, the new bot will be able track objects and movements, recognize objects and skin tones—all sorts of crazy stuff. Onrobo (another one of the new robot blogs, a trend I think is great) has details, as well as this first picture. Oh, and they have information about Roboraptor and Robopet, which the new V2 Robosapien can control (although they can be operated independently).

Robosapien V2 (and Friends!) [Gizmodo]