This is NSFWIYAB (Not Safe For Work If You Are a Bear), but a rare occurrence captured by the San Diego Zoo Polar Cam. Ask yourself a question, people: Do our children need Baloo porn?
A bear-shaped sleeping bag might protect you from being mauled, but you have to ask yourself: would I rather be mauled by a bear or violated by one? Think about it.
Normally you think science, lasers, and silicon chips when someone says “MIT,” but Huggable is an MIT invention nonetheless: it’s another smart robot companion, a bit like Paro meets Teddy Ruxpin. Its body is covered in sensors and motors, including webcams behind his eyes and a speaker in his nose, and its designed to respond to you and react like an electronic pet. But it’s a little smarter than Paro: it can act as a telepresence device, echoing the movements of a remotely-manipulated Huggable.
Having a cyborg teddy reading out your Twitter alerts… *shiver* the idea gives me the creeps a little. But not the guys who came up with the idea over at HyHome2.0. They’ve even got an instructional video so you can build your own artificial-voice bear, which uses Bluetooth to get data from your PC so you can plop the toy anywhere and still keep in touch. I’m not going to be building one: I’ve got a vision of teddy getting bored with endless inane Twitter updates, slapping in some steel fangs in its cyber-jaw and chewing its way out of the house. [Project page via Hackaday]
I asked Wilson why we had two animal posts on the page, back to back. Seems like overload on critters. But then I kind of remembered I really LIKE animal + gadget stories. I mean, FuzzyWuzzyModo was my idea, and all. So, I think we’ll do a few more posts like this, for the hell of it, on this slow news day. Look, a polar bear pretending to be on the phone! Leave a caption! [Photo via Dark Roasted]
Why hand your kid a room temperature bear when you can hand them a microwaved bear and show them you love them as much as a kid that’s not adopted? This bear, which costs $20, is specially made with microwavable components that keep it from going up in flames when nuked—something that’s definitely not child-friendly. Plus, it’s even coated with a “relaxing lavender” scent, all the better for keeping baby asleep so you can work on making a little brother or sister for him. [Gizoo via Shiny Shiny]
