I’m sure at some point you’ve all thought about having your very own robot — I know I have. The closest I ever came was helping a friend build a remote-controlled “battlebot,” only to see it laid to waste by some other kid’s metal monstrosity. It’s been well over a decade since then, and technology has certainly progressed. Designers Peter Seid and Phu Nguyen sought to take advantage of these advancements by developing a unique interface that transforms our everyday smartphones into robots capable of learning, growing, and expanding their functionality through a series of apps. They call it Romo, the smartphone robot.

While it certainly isn’t as adorable as Aibo, the robotic dog, Romo aims to deliver far more functionality at only a fraction of the cost — $78, as opposed to the Aibo’s $2000 list price. They’ve already held a Kickstarter, shattering their target goal by over $82,000.   You can download the iPhone app right away, but I believe they’ve sold out of their initial run via Kickstarter. If you’d like to know how to order one in the future, check out their official blog for updates.

The Great Garloo was first manufactured by the Marx toy company in 1961 — this very creepy looking two foot tall battery powered humanoid lizard robot could go forward or backward and turn his arms. And for extra kitsch we wears a “Garloo” medallion and cute leopard print loin cloth. How to Be a Retronaut discovered this great commercial from 1963 for the little green guy:

And here’s a recent video of Garloo in action:

Garloo photo found via robotnut.com.

Future Fighters is in the early stages as a film, but as a mecha fanboy who is obsessed with robots and spacecraft I really like what I see so far. This international project is being produced by British movie producer Guy Orlebar who is teaming up Korean director Nelson Shin (who was behind the 1986 animated Transformers film) and will star Japanese actress Rina Takeda of High-Kick Girl fame. But what I really love about what I see so far is the colorful anime inspired pre-production art which makes my inner geek happy:

Right now the film is still coming together (they’re aiming for release in 2012) — but being a low budget project (they’re aiming to make the film for $10 million which is low by Hollywood standards) I’d say that they have a decent shot. If you’d like to show you support for the film you can follow them on Twitter or Facebook.

Before Robotech there was Voltron which was the ultimate Japanese robot show about robots that came together: The series featured smaller robots that came together to form a larger robot, and the show itself was create by editing two anime series together (Beast King Go-Lion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV). Incubot is honoring this old school show with a Voltron Nekobot Flash Drive which will hold two gigs of storage and features a blazing sword.

Found via nerdapproved.com.

You know, it seemed inevitable. C-3PO and R2D2 always seemed so inseparable, so it would stand to reason that they may or may not have given birth to an illegitimate lovechild-droid. At least, web dev and caricature artist Jon Plante, seemed to think so – I just never imagined it’d be so hilarious or horrifying . That said, it sure makes for an awesome t-shirt. The shirt is currently available at teefury.com for only $9 plus shipping, but if you want one, you’ll need to hustle. Due to the format of the site, the shirt will only be available for the next 24 hours and once they sell out, they’re gone forever. If you’re worried about the quality of the shirts, I can actually vouch for them as I order from the site quite often. For more of his work, you can also check out Jon’s infrequently updated web comic Celebrity Skinned.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as the Features and Reviews Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator. He’s also an Assocaite Editor for the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com

I’m sure it’s not every day that you come across house music featuring robots – famous ones, at least. The video here features some of our favorites lending their robotic talents to Eclectic Method’s latest release entitled, you guessed it, “Robots.” Clever name, right? Yeah, I thought so too. I was really hoping they’d throw in some Mechagodzilla, but I suppose it was just wishful thinking. Still, it’s a pretty cool video and if you’d like a copy of the song or more info about the group, check their official website.

Found via The Awesomer

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as an Associate Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator, as well as the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com

K-9 made his first debut on Dr. Who in 1977 and he’s been beloved ever since. This Doctor Who Remote Control K-9 pays tribute to our cybernetic canine companion and includes flashing lights and speech. Judging by the fact that he runs on AA batteries I think the only flaw that I see with this K-9 unit is that he’s not life sized which would make him the perfect cosplay accessory (or ultimate office toy).

Below: Audio from K-9 from the 1976 Blackpool convention which featured a Dr. Who exhibition.

Medicom Toy is one of the cooler Japanese hobby companies which has an beautiful series of super realistically rendered figurines known as Real Action Heroes. This series is based upon well known licensed media properties and in the past they’ve put out figures for everything from Dragonball Z to Indian Jones. And they have just branched into Star Wars — shown above is the Real Action Heroes #494 Star Wars R2-D2 and shown below is the Real Action Heroes #493 Star Wars C-3PO:

The R2 unit is a bit over six inches tall and is able to turn his dome head and his legs are adjustable. Also included are LED lights which are a nice added touch, of course batteries aren’t included. C-3PO also features LED lights and all of his limbs can be posed. Of course these toys aren’t too cheap: R2-D2 is priced at $189 and C-3PO is $209 (I assume that the extra cost for C-3PO has to do more with his complexity than popularity).

This amazing video shows Mr. Woo a folk artist from China who builds beautiful homemade robots from scratch. What’s even more amazing is that he has no formal engineering training, in other words he a very talented hobbyist with a passion for robotics. By the way my favorite part of the video occurs at 3:40 when a robot stars walking by with a rickshaw. Found via the very talented Angel Wardriver.

Editor’s Gold Award Pick: As much as I love toys I live with the guilt that so many of them are filling the landfills of the world with toxic plastics and who knows what else. So when I met the robot shown above it was love at first sight. Now what’s interesting about this robot is that most of the parts that you see aren’t included! In fact 90% of what you’re looking at in this toy is made out of recycled items that we throw away every day — which is what makes this hobby kit so ingenious. The Makedo Find & Make a Robot Kit includes a easy-to-use cutting device to hack cardboard and a series of fasteners to hold objects together — and thus by applying the age old toy concepts that you see in Tinker Toys or Lego combined with the idea of recycling you get an amazingly creative activity for your kids.

What I also loved about this toy is that like Lego you can scale it with ease and also build almost anything that you can imagine. Here’s are a few examples that I found on their website which are quite inspiring to say the least:

The other two nice things about this activity is that it encourages kids to use their own imaginations — I can see many a future engineer and designer harkening back to playing with these connectors at the dawn of the 21st Century. In addition with a world gripped by a recession it’s nice to see a toy that can be fun on a low budget!

When I came across the above photo I was blown away: I’ve seen Metropolis and looked at so many stills — yet I never came across a image that represented so well the amazing amount of work that went into this film. So I set on a quest to locate other behind-the-scenes glimpses of the work that Fritz Lang did before he fled Germany in 1933:

This photo shows Fritz Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou in their Berlin apartment, 1923 or 1924. The two worked together a great deal during the 20s and wrote the script for Metropolis together. However they separated in 1931 and divorced in 1933 as Hitler came to power. Thea joined the Nazi party and continued writing scripts during the war — however Lang’s mother was Jewish and thus he was lucky enough to flee Germany.

This amazing photo shows Lang on the set of the flooded city of Metropolis.

Actress Brigitte Helm played Maria and the robot in Metropolis — like Lang she left Germany in 1935 and moved to Switzerland where she lived until the age of 88 in 1996. She retired from filmmaking but left behind an amazing legacy from the silent film era.

This is an Architectural drawing of Metropolis by the artist Erich Kettelhut (1893-1979). Kettelhut got his start as a stage-set painter and worked on quite a few of the expressionist silent films of the 20s including earlier collaborations with Lang on Dr. Mabuse der Spieler (1921) and Die Nibelungen (1924).

This drawing by Kettelhut was actually used as part of the opening sequence of Metropolis. It was created with a combination of dawring, oil pant and gouache on cardboard.

This was a preproduction sketch by Kettelhut which showed the city of Metropolis — this was the second sketch he did and you can see how he slowly evolved from a cityscape that looked like a Manhattan skyline to something had more of a science fiction flavor.

And here are carpenters at work making those preproduction drawings come to life. If you look at the center of the drawing you can see the left side of the central building of Metropolis which would inspire the film Blade Runner over fifty years later.

Frau Im Mond (Woman in the Moon) from 1929 was years ahead of its time in showing a journey to the moon. This photo shows them filming on the set of the moon which features a giant backdrop painting of a lunar landscape.

This is the model of the rocket used in Frau Im Mond which shows the amazing amount of detail that Lang would put into his films. In fact the rocket scientist Hermann Oberth was a technical advisor to Lang on the film which became very popular with Wernher von Braun’s circle. After World War II Oberth went to work for Wernher von Braun doing work for NASA and while he retired in 1962 he did witness the first moon launch of the Apollo 11.

This photo shows the master at work — on the far left is Fritz Lang instructing the cameraman on the set of Frau Im Mond. When Lang moved to America he did a great deal of work in Hollywood including many films that were westerns and film noir, but sadly he never returned to making science fiction films.

My special thanks to ectomo.com, projectrho.com, leninimports.com, and goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com.

I’ve seen tons of iPod themed goodies on Etsy but as far as I can tell Google has beaten Apple to the punch in the urban toys market with this set of Android Mini Collectibles Series 01. Frankly the thing that find heart warming about the Android logo is that it’s so darn cute which makes it an ideal collectable, and mind you that this is something that Tux the penguin logo for Linux could never pull off (it was the far body and eyes that made it look so doofy). This set was designed by the artist Andrew Bell and there are a dozen different designs each of which stands at three inches tall and features a rotating head:

This set will be available for sale at deadzebra.com later this month.

Found via nerdapproved.com.

This is the video for the Ichirou Mizuki song It Is Not This! Korejanai Robo! which tells the heartbreaking tale of a child otaku who years from a Gundam toy but whose clueless parents get him a cheap bootleg instead. Of course our little hero isn’t going to take this slight, so he takes his revenge on the wannabe Gundam. But this mecha knockoff has a few tricks up his sleeve.

Found via super fangurl Ardith Carlton.

David Lipson of Lipson Robotics has been doing some impressive work with his homemade robot sculptures. His latest Speaker Bot creation takes this to the next level — it features a working speaker which can be plugged into a mp3 player. Shown in this photo is Lipson’s retro first generation iPod:

Shown above is an NTT ad for the Docomo for PC service which features Tetsujin 28-go, which is lovingly known to American fans as Gigantor. I love how while the two giant robots are destroying Tokyo the Docomo PC user is still spellbound by his nifty software…

This video of two Gundam robots slugging it out is from the recent 2009 International Robot Exhibition. I like how the decapitated Gundam continues to dance after defeat…

Yes I know James Cameron will make a billion dollars with Avatar. But you know what Cameron will never know how to do? Create a damn high quality giant robot that kids will want to buy thirty years from now! Shown above is the reason why: The Avatar AMP Suit (shown above) looks like a left over prop from the film Aliens:

Yes that design was really cool in 1986 — that’s when Cameron wasn’t “king of the world” and he hired the likes of talented folks like Syd Mead to help out. Just to give you a comparison here’s a state-of-the-art anime robot from four years earlier in 1982:

What you’re looking at above is the Gerwalk which transform from a fighter space craft to a walking robot from the anime series Macross, which Americans know as Robotech. Now let’s jump ahead to year 2009 to the very hip anime series Basquash! which features robots that are so low-cost to the characters that they are used to play an over sized game of basketball while the characters exchange snarky remarks (because to them this is just hanging out in the hood):

But now take a closer look at the actual design: That’s right, not only do these robots play basketball to amuse their owners — but they double as kitbashed low rider cars that you’d find in the hood in LA:

When you look at the creativity in a show like Basquash! suddenly James Cameron seems so vanilla. It comes down to a sheer lack of creativity in Hollywood, for example Japan has escaped the notion that a robot even has to look like a robot:

Not only is Mahoro Andou from Mahoromatic a robot (“More Human Than Human” as we say at the Tyrell Corporation) — but she’s was designed for the manga Mahoromatic over ten years ago in 1998! In the mean time us poor Americans are still stuck with this:

No wonder poor Astro looks so depressed! And just so you don’t accuse me of being a sexist, the quality of American male robot butlers are even more embarrassing to look at:

Now I know exactly what you’re thinking right now: “Oh sure the Japanese can design a pretty robot, but what about the raw fire power?” Well check this scene from the Big O anime series — now mind you that this was done on a television budget which is a fraction of a Hollywood film:

So it’s not the budget, it’s a matter of good old fashioned storytelling. Hollywood sees the robot as comedy relief or a prop where the anime studios aren’t afraid to give a starring role to a hunk of metal. True you might see an small exception from time to time like the live action Transformers films, but sadly even that is based on anime.

So at this point you may be asking just why are the Japanese are so damn good at making giant robots? Well here’s the dirty little secret that makes all the difference:

What you’re looking at is the Bandai booth from the New York City Toy Fair from earlier this year. Unlike Hollywood where toy companies and film companies are two different beasts — this isn’t the case in Japan.

Bandai started life as a toy company in 1900, and today own the field in Japan — but just as important is the fact that they also are a film and television powerhouse. So imagine if Disney and Hasbro were the same company: You’d have Bandai. But it even goes further than that since the videogame maker Namco is also a part of Bandai. So now take Disney, Hasbro and add Electronic Arts in for fun.

A secret to the multi-medium success of Bandai is that they don’t hamstring the creative aspects of the shows and films they create: Although the idea of making those shows toyable (and yes that’s an industry term) is part of their core corporate DNA.

So for example when Bandai backed the anime series Cowboy Bebop they told director Shinichirō Watanabe “you can do anything you want, so long as the show has some spaceships.” The result is some amazing entertainment and some cool toys for the fanboys to buy for years to come.

Below: Tetsujin 28-go (known as Gigantor in United States) started life as a manga in 1956 — the robot is so beloved that a full scale version of it was built.

Some Stanford students have put together a autonomous running robot car by hacking an Audi TTS. The car was designed so it can race to the top of Pikes Peak in 2010, however the robot car reminded me a great deal of KITT from the 1982 TV series Knight Rider:

Although to be fair the Stanford hacked automobile lacks the artificial intelligence, however I always found William Daniels voice very irritating myself. He always seemed to be nagging poor David Hasselhoff just a little too much.

If you’re too poor to afford an internet toy like the Chumby (which still costs $200) the next best thing may be the Pet’z (PEZ) PET-6008-PK Sandra animated alarm clock which costs about $32 plus shipping from Japan. This toy pig does double duty by acting as an alarm clock and virtual pet (which will get angry if you don’t feed it). The pink critter has the ability to produce animal sounds and features nine types of animated facial expressions:

This is video footage from the CEATEC conference in Japan which ends today: The show has a focus on cutting edge digital and electronics work. Shown above is a very eerie looking cosplay attired robot which uses Vocaloid software. What’s odd about this robot is that she blinks her eyes; In fact when I first looked at this video below it took me a bit to figure out (out of context of course) that I wasn’t looking at an actual human doing cosplay at an anime con:

Found via WebDog.be.

Weighing in at about 50 tons and costing $1.5 million dollars the now famous Gigantor (原寸大鉄人28号) statute is the hit of Kobe, Japan. I figured at this point that everyone has seen all the photos of this 60 foot tall wonder, however some amazing videos are just starting to flood YouTube. Here are some of the coolest that I’ve come across so far that can give you a sense of scale:

Found via new-akiba.com.

Is it me or do you get the feeling that the team that designed the RIBA Robotic Assistance Bear had the entire robot designed — but then only after the fact slapped a moe looking bear head on the poor creature just to get some press? And as much as I love bears from a marketing point of view I just don’t think of them as a nurses best friend!

Also I don’t want to down talk RIBA, but frankly the patient patients shown in the video (and photo above) are on the thin side of the weight spectrum. If you really want to prove the worth of a robot bear in a hospital setting you need to show the cyber ursine scooping up an obese heart attack victim who’s still clutching his Big Mac and fries.

I guess for me it comes down to the fact that robot bear looks a bit too prim and proper to be getting his paws dirty when push comes to shove (which isn’t to say that robot bear isn’t cute, because he/she/it is very cute indeed!).

Tomy has released a cute line of Zoids which you can win if you buy certain soft drinks in Japan including Coca Cola, tea爽健beauty, and Fanta Zero Cider:

RoboGeisha is an upcoming film from writer/director Noboru Iguchi (井口昇). The trailer for this film (which will be released in 2010) looks quite campy, although I’d have to say that’s what makes me want to watch it!

The AntDesignStore is a Japanese version of Archie McPhee of sorts, they offer a wide range of novelties from this cute laptop chair to cat themed sleeping masks. Shown above is a line of their colorful looking retro robot line of USB memory sticks which are available at geekstuff4u.com. What’s cool about the design of these robots is that their LEDs light up when you plug them into your computer.

Found via geekalerts.com.