Engineers at the University of Kitakyushu have developed an underwater survey robot that looks good enough to eat. “Tai-robot-kun,” a 7-kilogram (15.4 lb) robotic sea bream (red snapper) with a silicone body covered in realistically hand-painted scales, features a unique propulsion system that allows it to move its tail and drift silently through the water like a real fish.

Tai-robot-kun’s creator, professor Ikuo Yamamoto, says the robot swims silently and looks like a real fish, it would be able to gather data without alarming the creatures it encounters. The robotic fish can swim for an hour on a full battery charge, and it relies on a full battery charge, and it relies on a ballast system similar to those used in submarines to adjust its buoyancy and depth.

Yamamoto and his team are also reportedly developing a robotic manta ray that uses some of the same technology.

This research surely an will gain a large attention for all the robot geek.  ICub is a one metre high baby robot which will be used to study how a robot could quickly pick up language skills.

Professor Chrystopher Nehaniv and Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn at the University of Hertfordshire's School of Computer Science are working with an international consortium led by the University of Plymouth on ITALK (Integration and Transfer of Action and Language Knowledge in Robots), which begins on 1 March.

ITALK aims to teach the robot to speak by employing the same methods used by parents to teach their children. Professor Nehaniv and Professor Dautenhahn, who are European leaders in Artificial Intelligence and Human Robot Interaction, will conduct experiments in human and robot language interaction to enable the robot to converse with humans.

Typical experiments with the iCub robot will include activities such as inserting objects of various shapes into the corresponding holes in a box, serialising nested cups and stacking wooden blocks. Next, the iCub will be asked to name objects and actions so that it acquires basic phrases such as "robot puts stick on cube".

Professor Nehaniv said: "Our approach is that robot will use what it learns individually and socially from others to bootstrap the acquisition of language, and will use its language abilities in turn to drive its learning of social and manipulative abilities. This creates a positive feedback cycle between using language and developing other cognitive abilities. Like a child learning by imitation of its parents and interacting with the environment around it, the robot will master basic principles of structured grammar, like negation, by using these abilities in context."

The scientific and technological research developed during the project will have a significant impact on the future generation of interactive robotic systems within the next ten years and the leadership role of Europe in this area.

Speaking about the research, Professor Dautenhahn said: "Cub will take us a stage forward in developing robots as social companions. We have studied issues such as how robots should look and how close people will want them to approach and now, within a year, we will have the first humanoid robot capable to developing language skills."

Hmm is it means someday there will be a robot that could fluently speaks spanish, but it can't speaks english? well I prefer 3CPO.

We all know that Robot can replace human task to do some boring or perhaps dangerous task, but this kind of robot will make men jealous. What this robot does? that will make man jealous? well it's a Breast Message Robot, can you imagine a robot message a woman breast.

This robot is developer by Wang Wei, a founder of Beijing BUBBY Robot Technologies, this Robot simulates the professional masseur hand movement while automatically adjusting itself to fit various breast shape and sizes.

The producer specifies the target for this robot are:

1. Girls who are reaching or having reached puberty, hope to improve the growth of breast.
2. Women who received surgery in the breast, desire to have a faster and better recovery.
3. Mothers, who are nursing babies, want to release the pain and to accelerate the secretion of breast milk.
4. Female who is having the period, want to release the swelling pain of breasts.
5. Women who want to lower the incidence of mastopathies (noncancerous lumps in the breast).
6. Women, who are under pressure, want to relax themselves.
7. Women who want to improve the quality of their sex activities.
8. Women who want to have pretty breasts."

source taken from http://news.softpedia.com