Theres another, equally important, purpose to making humanoids such as Cog human: interaction with other human beings. For human/robot interaction, its good to have something that looks vaguely human

TrueSpace has always led the pack in terms of features as far as Windows 3D animation packages under $2,000 are concerned. Recently, however, the market has become rather crowded, with a powerful upgrade to Ray Dream (reviewed issue 9, p100) and the cut-down version of LightWave 3D (Inspire 3D) both challenging it on features and price.

Build your own robot explorer.

Robot, heal thyself.

If I'd seen one of these when I was an 8 year old, I would have gone on a hunger-strike until my parents bought me one.

So your Mum's not inspired by an overclocked Phenom system - but she might go for these gifts.

Earlier walking robots had a more serious side: to discover more about the human brain. Shakey, for example, emerged from the Stanford Research Institute (now SRIs artificial intelligence centre) in 1

War for the PlayStation generation.

Revolutionary lens is lighter, smaller and more affordable.

Robotic arm takes multiple pictures of the same scene.

Small unmanned ground vehicle heading for Iraq.

Reaching the places where human beings cant travel would later propel robotic arms millions of miles away from the factory floor. It started with the creation of the six-jointed, robotic Stanford Arm,

PC Authority playtests the Halo 3 campaign in four-player co-op mode, and tries out a newly unveiled multiplayer map, called “Narrows”.