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Every time I see any Cylon-themed object, I get nostalgia of those perfect nights watching the series in bed, and I want to see it again. This Cylon Teddy Bear is the last straw. Starbuck, here I go. More »
Touted as a responsible robot bartender, SOBEaR is a DIY teddy bear with a built-in breathalyser that’ll only dispense liquor depending on how drunk you are.
Yesterday the Japanese announced the first space beer. Now the British are claiming the first teddy bear astronauts, who were photographed in space from a home-made vessel with two digital cameras, a flight computer, GPS, and radio.
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.
It may seem a little strange, but gifting teddy bears to adults is still a time honoUred tradition. If cute and cuddly isn’t your style, a somewhat less emasculating option can be found with this Tuned Bear iPod speaker. The bear can be turned on and off by pressing on his ear and the volume can be adjusted by squeezing the appropriate paw. It’s far more functional than your average bear but, alas, it is only available in Japan at the moment. On the other hand, mini vinyl Headphonies might even be a better option—and those are slated to be released at the end of the month. [Rakuten via Technabob]
Here’s an idea: people gesticulating wildly with their hands-free headsets already look crazy–why not capitalise on our nation’s love of all things crazy and cute by putting a mobile phone inside of an, oh, i don’t know, a teddy bear! So went a recent design meeting at Japanese firm Willcom apparently, who was showing their US$500 Kuma (bear) Phone concept at the recent Good Design Expo in Tokyo. Kuma takes an embedded SIM card and has assignable speed dial points on each paw, which you dial by squeezing. And of course, to accept and hang up calls, you squeeze its arse. Of course. [Trends in Japan]
A man and his daughter thought something was up when their terminally ill grandmother was losing money from her house, so they wrote down the serial numbers of the money in her purse and set up a DIY camera inside a teddy bear. It only took one day for the grandmother’s caregiver to go and take 40 pounds out of the old lady’s purse, which were easily identified by the serials and the evidence from the teddycam. In compensation, the thief will pay 60 pounds and was fired from the place that hired her out. This falls in line with our motto: always have a hidden camera detector when you go into old people’s homes. You’ll thank us later. [BBC via BBG]
One of the great joys of parenting, as I understand it, is being handed a malleable lump of proto-humanity that sees you as some kind of god, absorbing everything you do and say as a lifelong lesson. It’s a big responsibility, sure, but also an opportunity to create a really… unique individual. Which is why I just have to recommend getting one of these absolutely terrifying robo teddy bears for your toddler.
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]
If you hate backseat drivers, fluffy animals, and people calling you out about your drinking problem, you will definitely want to steer clear of the teddy bear navigation system being cooked up by iX research corporation. The bear gives directions, but it will also critique your driving by saying phrases like “watch out!” when you slam on the brakes. It will even confront you when sensors embedded in its throat detect the presence of alcohol (“You haven’t been drinking have you?”).
