He may have plastic boobs saggier than Dame Judi Dench, but as Wired points out , this RoboThespian “shows more acting range than some Hollywood stars.” The British robot has been programmed to show off a variety of acting abilities. His creators, Engineered Arts , have made him completely self-supporting, with his torso capable of bending and turning, his arms able to move about, and even basic facial gestures performed. He is powered by compressed air, with the control system sitting in his torso along with the air valves that help him move. The best bit however is that he can be fully-programmed to perform a script on cue, translating text to speech in English, Spanish, Germany, French and even Mandarin Chinese.

There’s a saying that a watched pot never boils. You could also say that a watched plant never grows—unless it’s being watched by a laser-wielding, 3D plastic sculpture-printing, growth-tracking megarobot. David Bowen’s ” Growth Modeling Device ” uses a circular rig to scan an onion once a day with a laser, then employing a “fuse deposition modeler” to generate a plastic sculpture of that scan. When the model is done, a conveyor belt burps into action, moving the recreated onion out of the way and making room for the next day’s piece. What you end up with is a visual record of the onion’s growth over the course of a few weeks—with no tears involved! David Bowen has all sorts of other neat kinetic sculpture works up on his site

While reaching for salt shakers, I’ve managed to set tablecloths on fire, knock glasses over, and, in one case, flash a dinner companion. No more of that though, because these across-the-table marching, wind-up salt-and-pepper bots are here to help. The bot set is available for $33, won’t be confused with bedroom gadgets , and is almost cute when at work: Now, I’m certain these bots are somehow evil and will take over the world, but frankly I don’t care if they spare me from any more singed tablecloths or hair. [ Suck UK via Nerd Approved via Foolish Gadgets via Geeky Gadgets ]

Pop Sci has a neat video of the Teamworkbot , a robot who can watch you attempt to carry out a task, then offer help when you’re doing it wrong. But I won’t lie…when you fail, Teamworkbot seems pretty intimidating. As part of a project under the EU’s Joint Action Science and Technology team, the Teamworkbot was designed with the goal of having it be able to monitor progress, ask questions, and anticipate what you might do next, helping to prevent errors along the way. But I really just can get over how peeved the robot seems when you mess something up.

Sure, Wall-E is all cute and adorable, but does he spew melted floppy disks? No. This is why I, in my humble opinion, think that Mech Virus is way cooler than Wall-E could ever hope to be. The actual tech behind Mech Virus, on display at Maker Faire 2009 , is pretty simple, it’s just a motor and a power supply that allows Mech Virus to waddle and spit out a Norton Anti-Virus CD every 30 seconds or so. The actual motherboard components don’t work at all, making Mech Virus more about appearance, and less about action. But still I love it.

‘Cause once you go ‘bot, you never go back. The rest of this definitely NSFW Shogun Warrior photoshoot from a 1977 issue of Gallery magazine is over at io9 . NSFW: [ io9 ]

You may be familiar with the modular line of Kondo robots sold in Japan — but are you aware that a “Kondo Battle” exists where the bots duke it out to the death (or until they fall over)? Well, now you know… which is half the battle . You can pretty much see where this is headed — life-size (or larger) Gundams going totally crazy on cityscapes across the globe. A picture says a thousand words, and video says billions and billions, so feast your eyes on the IDG News clip after the break, and to sweeten the deal, we’ve included a few videos of the actual fights as well.

Aside from being able to convert Swedish krona into pesos, millimeters of mercury into pascals and everything in between, ConvertBot looks and sounds beautiful. Also, I think this is the most emotionally touching app demo I’ve ever seen. With the crisp 5D Mark II limited-depth-of-field video, that plaintive guitar music and this guy’s voice, I feel suddenly moved to SPEND SPEND SPEND! In all seriousness though, this is a great piece of work by the guys at Tapbots and well worth the buck. Vote with your dollars and reward some attention to design detail (from the satisfying click noises down to the lovely typography and icons) in the App Store . Lord knows we need all we can get

I’m need a vacation. I was thinking Pavones beach, Costa Rica, or maybe some sailing in Hunnebo, Sweden. But no, the Japanese have convinced me with these videos: It’s going to be Hakodate, Japan. This hilarious and absolutely outrageous advertising campaign did it.

The Japanese government is planning to put robots to practical use in Japanese households in as soon as five years, and has already begun formulating the political agencies needed to oversee robot safety standards. According to a government panel on Wednesday, the robots are needed to provide day-care and nursing services to Japan’s rapidly aging population. Since over 41 billion of the projected 62 billion dollar robot market is supposed to be dedicated to care, it’s important to start thinking of the regulations that need to be put in place. For instance, Three Laws of (Nursing) Robotics: 1.