What you are about to see is real footage of a real event. From the 3rd annual Austrian Hexapod Championships, watch robots dance it off in extreme competition, surprisingly, without a single tongue-in-cheek reference to the dance known as the robot. If one of these entrants looks familiar, that’s because he is. The…uhh…one in the hat does a routine to Mambo No. 5 that can be seen in full here. Otherwise, enjoy the freaky dance montage and the nightmares that will surely accompany it. [via MAKE]
The only acceptable excuse this week for missing out on Gizmodo’s Pulitzer-winning weekend coverage is you were barred from doing so, just like that iPod guy from Apple. Otherwise, you got some reading to do: • Apple passed RIM to take its place as the big number two. • Is the Kindle worth six grand? Amazon thinks it is. • Popsci thinks it’s ID’d the top new technologies for 2008. Do you agree?
• Girl Talk dishes on why he’s a PC, and why that headband might not be ironic.
Now you can add “fish tank” along side “beverage cooler” and “projector” on the long list of job titles R2-D2 has had in his post-acting career. But rest assured that no matter what his occupation happens to be, R2 has a strong work ethic. In addition to housing your fish, he will rotate his head and utter his trademark bleeps with any voice command. He also features overhead LED tank lights that rotate colors and a periscope built-into his radar eye for spying on the fish floating in his robo-belly. On the downside, R2 never works cheap—this beauty will set you back $130. [Hammacher Schlemmer via TFTS via Geekalerts]
We don’t necessarily recommend the purchase, but T-Mobile has brought back the discontinued Sidekick iD for $50 online with a 2-year contract. Keep in mind that for $100 more, you can score a Sidekick 2008 that packs a camera and Bluetooth into a smaller package. Then again, $100 is $100. And last time we checked, that can buy you 100 double cheeseburgers or, like, 2/3 of a Sidekick 2008. [T-Mobile via gadgetell]
Oh Rolly… we know you’re an overpriced, 2GB dancing robot with convoluted controls and questionable sound quality. But dammit, your impractical, big-corporate ways have gnawed a soft-spot deep into the noxious cesspool we call a heart. Now this: Rolly model SEP-50BT with Bluetooth control from your cellphone or laptop. Shipping in Japan on November 21st for an expected ¥40,000 or about $427. Sold. Watch it all unfold in the video after the break.
In July there were some strong rumors that Dell would be bringing out a Zing-based MP3 player that would be a “Zune killer“: but now it looks like those plans have been canned. According to the Wall St Journal, Dell had been as close as this Autumn to making at least one Zing-device, but the prototypes are being “indefinitely” shelved. Instead Dell will turn its concentration to the software aspect of Zing, and busy itself incorporating that into its upcoming PCs as music and video management software. I’ll leave it to you in the comments to work out if Dell’s being sensible or not. [WSJ via Electronista]
Here in the US of A, most netbooks come stocked with a predictable array of hardware: a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 80GB HDD, 1GB of RAM and a price tag ranging from $399 to $699. Elsewhere on the planet, things are a bit different, and if VIA has anything to say about it, it will be the name people think of when hearing “netbook” in Asia and beyond. Said outfit has just cranked up a Global Mobility Bazaar program to “drive [global] mobile computing adoption,” and it has already managed to pull 15 companies (including Microsoft, for a little thing called WinXP) onboard. In essence, the program will enable second-tier vendors to get in the netbook game and offer products with shorter life cycles and lower prices — both of which are mighty useful in emerging markets. In somewhat related news, we’re also hearing a sketchy report that HP has chosen the Intel route for its future netbooks, and considering that the Vivienne Tam Digital Clutch has already selected Intel, we suppose the forthcoming Mini 1000 will likely be the real confirmation / denial.
Oh Rolly… we know you’re an overpriced, 2GB dancing robot with convoluted controls and questionable sound quality. But dammit, your impractical, big-corporate ways have gnawed a soft-spot deep into the noxious cesspool we call a heart. Now this: Rolly model SEP-50BT with Bluetooth control from your cellphone or laptop. Shipping in Japan on November 21st for an expected ¥40,000 or about $427. Sold. Watch it all unfold in the video after the break.
Yesterday ASUS stunned and pleased our eyeballs with the announcement of the 12-inch N20A laptop, and today two more get added to the crew: the 14.1-inch N80V and the 15.4-inch N50V. Both have the option of T9400 / P8600 / P7350 Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, up to 4GB of RAM, and each pack NVIDIA’s GeForce 9300M GPU with 512MB of VRAM. The N80V has an up to 320GB hard drive capacity while the N50V goes up to 500GB. The N80V boasts a WXGA display and the NV50 offers WXGA / WXGA+ / WSXGA+ options. There’s also a stunning selection of ports, including eSATA and HDMI on both of these bad boys. For unequaled spec-reading pleasure, hit the read links.
We’re always hearing about some fantastical, nigh-mythical creation that Carnegie Mellon University is in the midst of cobbling together from spare parts, crazy ideas, and pure, simple genius, so maybe we shouldn’t be frothing over the new robotic truck they’ve partnered up with Caterpillar to create, but this one promises to be the “world’s largest.” Adapting software CMU used in the DARPA Urban Challenge, the team hopes to end up with fully automated, 700-ton trucks capable of moving up to 42 miles per hour which will be used for mining. The trucks would theoretically reduce costs, increase productivity, and save lives. The Frankenstein-ed vehicles will boast GPS, laser range finders to identify large obstacles, video equipment, and a “robotic driver.” The scientists somewhat predictably foresee some (as of now) rather far-fetched consumer applications in cars and trucks over the “next five to ten years,” but we’re taking that with a few salt grains for now. The trucks aren’t ready quite yet but we hear their arrival is imminent, and and we can only imagine that somewhere in the world, Grave Digger is crying to himself.
Update: We’ve changed the title to reflect the accurate arrangement, which is a teaming up of CMU and Caterpillar, not DARPA. Thanks to the commenter who pointed that out.
The only acceptable excuse this week for missing out on Gizmodo’s Pulitzer-winning weekend coverage is you were barred from doing so, just like that 
Now you can add “fish tank” along side 
We don’t necessarily recommend the purchase, but T-Mobile has brought back the discontinued 
In July there were some strong rumors that Dell would be bringing out a 
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