Robosapien, Roboraptor to get new brains

Robotics
Your next pet robot will probably be able to do more than terrorize your toddlers and cats. It should also, with a few modifications, be smart enough to pick up the living room and may perform another killer app that roboticists have long dreamt about: It is called, ''Fetch me a beer."

The Roboraptor and Robosapien entertainment toys will be getting better brains, thanks to a deal between their manufacturer, WowWee (www.wowwee.com), and Evolution Robotics (www.evolution.com). Evolution is leading an industry effort to create a standard software platform that will spur innovation in the field.

Roboraptor already has some smarts, such as an infrared vision system, touch sensors, and an ability to exhibit different ''moods." (I prefer spending time with Roboraptor when he is in his ''friendly mood.")

The WowWee toys will be the first mass-market robots with sophisticated vision and navigation. The systems are in some ways not that different from those that compete in the DARPA Grand Challenge.

Just imagine the hacks we will see as part of this new wave of intelligent home robots: Robosapien mopping your floor; Roboraptor sentinels patrolling your property. WowWee will use Evolution's visual pattern recognition technology, ViPR, and its infrared localization package, Northstar, giving its robots the ability to avoid objects and navigate the home. The robots will know exactly where they are in the home within a few centimeters, according to Evolution.

Evolution president Paolo Pirjanian says that Evolution will reveal partnerships with other consumer robotics companies soon.

''Consumer electronics companies are beginning to integrate more technologies into their products," said Pirjanian. ''One thing we will be seeing a lot of are robotics toys turning into something more functional for the home."

Gaming

I suppose Atari (www.atari.com) could have produced ''Tycoon City: Boston," in which you try your luck as a developer, greasing the palms of State House legislators and plugging leaks in the Big Dig.

But Beantown is no match for the sheer scale of architecture and opportunity of the Big Apple. (As a transplanted New Yorker, I will forever regard the city of my birth as the capital of the planet.)

''Atari's ''Tycoon City: New York" lets you channel your inner Trump within a fantastic virtual cityscape. You can reshape entire neighborhoods and build businesses from the East Village to Times Square.

Indeed, the opportunities in this New York, like the real one, seem limitless. You can strike it rich or strike out, as a restaurateur (think Rocco DiSpirito) or a media monster (Martha).

You start small, running a bistro in Chelsea or managing a Wall Street financial firm. The game is chockablock with visual details, plenty enough to make an expatriate New Yorker misty for his old haunts.

Prototype

Before you go under the knife for your extreme makeover, you may first want to get a 3D view of your future self, courtesy of a new imaging system for plastic surgeons.

It should also prove a useful system for tailors, designers, and architects.

Belfast, Northern Ireland-based Axis Three (www.axisthree.net) is partnering with Siemens to develop the new system, which a surgeon can use to sell a patient on a new schnoz.

The Axis Three system uses three cameras to capture a 3D image of your God-given appearance. A surgeon can then point, click, and drag on the resulting photo-realistic image to rotate and manipulate it.

Say you are interested in breast enhancements. The Axis Three software will show just how you will look with a pair of 36DDs and from every conceivable angle.

The Axis Three system, which is still a prototype, will be more than a predictive tool for patients, said the company's director of business development, Jim Blumel.

''It will not only give you a better idea of your new shape," said Blumel, ''it will tell your surgeon just how many cubic centimeters of saline he will need."