Silly Robot Fighters
While homemade walking robots are cool enough, one-on-one death matches featuring karate chops and leg sweeps, taunts and special moves are even better. And the 12th all-amateur Robo-One Grand Championship, which just took place in Tokyo, featured all of this. And the all-amateur event seems to get zanier each year.

Reuters reports:

Hundreds of spectators clapped as robot "Arichyon," clad in Christmas lights, sang "We wish you a Merry Christmas." They then cheered when a robot with a penguin head toppled Arichyon over with a single punch.

Check out the bubble-headed bot in this video (about 53 sec. in). Surely it will be TKO'd once popped by it's fang-fingered opponent, no? Yet there is a special surprise in store:

Speaking of Penguins...
...Dinosaurs apparently breathed like 'em.

Last month, BBC News reported of data published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences:

Dinosaurs like Velociraptors […] had one of the most efficient respiratory systems of all animals, similar to that of modern diving birds like penguins, fossil evidence shows. It fuelled their bodies with oxygen for the task of sprinting after prey, say researchers at Manchester University.

The bipedal meat-eaters had air sacs ventilated by tiny bones that moved the ribcage up and down.

"Finding these structures in modern birds and their extinct dinosaur ancestors suggests that these running dinosaurs had an efficient respiratory system and supports the theory that they were highly active animals that could run relatively quickly when pursuing their prey," said Dr. Jonathan Codd, who led the research.

Today's Mission Statement
From the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator:

We envision to authoritatively restore unique catalysts for change and synergistically promote cutting edge products to meet our customer's needs.

Toyota Makes Music
Toyota Motor Corp said on yesterday it intends to put its humanoid and other advanced robots to practical use soon after 2010 to help people in factories, hospitals, homes and around town.

Unveiling two new robots, Japan's top automaker said it would step up research and development in the field, including by doubling the number of engineers to about 200 in around three years. It will also build a research facility dedicated to robot technology on the site of one of its domestic factories next year, Reuters reports President Katsuaki Watanabe as having said.

One of these is a "mobility robot," and the other is this violin-playing robot, which stands 5 ft. tall and features 17 flexible joints and mechanical fingers:

Go-Go-Gadget Goofy
In an effort to boost its burgeoning robotics industry, South Korea's Commerce Ministry announced last month a proposal to build two robot theme parks by 2013 for $1.6 billion.

The Associated Press reports:

Combining culture and entertainment with robot technology, they are to be built in Incheon, just west of Seoul, and the port city of Masan, about 242 miles south of Seoul, the ministry said in a statement. Visitors will be able to interact with robots and test new products.

The project still needs to be approved in a feasibility study next year before getting off the ground in 2009, the ministry said.

The robotics field has grown about 40 percent a year since 2003, according to the ministry.

Strange Gesture
Apple recently donated 100 iPod Nanos to high school students who lost their homes in the recent California fires, according to SignOnSanDiego.com. Because, apparently, an iPod is a top concern for kids recently made homeless.

Also, without homes or computers, it isn't really clear how they'll manage to get any music onto their new MP3 players.

While it's hardly likely to make up for losing everything they owned, the kids appreciated the gesture. One 15-year-old said an iPod was not at the top of her list of worries, but it was nice to get one.

Apple seemed rather reluctant to capitalize on the publicity, so I suppose we'll have to chalk this one up to cockeyed Christmas spirit in Cupertino.

Isle of Man Sets Sights on Moon
If you'll recall, Google and the X PRIZE Foundation launched the Google Lunar X PRIZE in September, offering a $30 million prize to the first private company to reach the moon with a rover by December 31, 2014.

According to Wired's Science blog, the competition has gotten its first official entrant:

Odyssey Moon, a startup based on the Isle of Man, and run by Carl Sagan mentee, Bob Richards and the CFO of satellite-provider Inmarsat, Ramin Khadem, plans to land a rover on the moon within the next seven years.

Other competitors have announced their intentions to enter the competition, but Odyssey Moon is the first to have completed its registration, which includes a small monetary deposit.

"We'll see the first attempts to win this competition within the next four years," said Peter Diamandis, X-Prize founder. "I would expect we'd see half a dozen teams fully-registered by the middle of '08."

Tracking Santa
Do you have kids and want to have some fun tracking Santa's whereabouts on Christmas Eve? Check out NORAD Tracks Santa.

The Heart of the Whirlpool Galaxy

Click image for larger view.
Image Credit: NASA and Hubble Heritage (STScI) / AURA)
Acknowledgment: N. Scoville (Caltech) and T. Rector (NOAO)


Cheers.