Mr. Future

Bot Junkie has a few minutes of the Disney / Thinkways Toys folks showing off the upcoming Ultimate WALL -E robot. It’s really kind of brilliant, having a toy robot that imitates a robot, making it a very natural match for motion and expression of the original character. The footage is a little dark, grainy, and exactly the sort of thing I could watch all day.

Link

Ultimate Wall-E, a dreamy little $189 toy robot will be on the market this around-about the June launch of the robo-tactular Disney/Pixar Wall-E movie.

He’ll have 10 motors, an infra-red remote for programming movement and behaviors, and be equipped with a nice sensor compliment including sound, obstacle, and touch detection.

There will also be a number of smaller Wall-E toys, including the iDance Wall-E mp3 speaker toy. These toys and more will debut at the Bay Area Maker Fair in just a few days. Initiate lunch-money-saving-protocol 43.

Update!: A few new details via MakeZine.com:

“An innovative touch programming system lets kids direct WALL·E simply
by making patterns on the remote’s touch pad. With voice activation and
a follow-me mode, WALL·E can follow the sound of a human voice and
detect someone entering a room.”

“The Ultimate WALL·E is also MP3 compatible and features built-in speakers. USB cables and rechargeable batteries are included.”

Link (via Gearlog)

A timeless story of a boy and his robot, it watches like a Godzilla movie crossed with the 60’s television version of Batman. Great campy fun. A man in a giant robot costume slugs it out with rubbery monsters while stomping all over a scale model of Tokyo. A 12 year old boy joins a secret organization of world defending spies, foiling alien overlord plots and villainous beatnik henchmen. What is not to love?

In this week’s episode, Giant Robot takes on one of the goofiest looking alien robots in sci-fi history, Nucleon, the “Magic Globe”. Enjoy.

For the next few weeks, I’ll be posting episodes Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot; quite possibly the greatest television show ever made in the history of the entire world.

A timeless story of a boy and his robot, it watches like a Godzilla movie crossed with the 60’s television version of Batman. Great campy fun. A man in a giant robot costume slugs it out with rubbery monsters while stomping all over a scale model of Tokyo. A 12 year old boy joins a secret organization of world defending spies, foiling alien overlord plots and villainous beatnik henchmen. What is not to love?

Growing up, this brilliantly/poorly dubbed 60s Japanese TV masterpiece was the absolute high point of my after-school formative years. Did I mention the giant robot? There’s a giant robot.

The four-story fire-breathing car-crushing robot, Robosaurus, will be on the block this January 12-20 at the annual Barret Jackson Collector Car Event / Auction in Scottsdale Arizona.

The beloved engine of destruction and noise has been a favorite in the monster-truck circuit since 1990. Owning it, I’m sure, has been the dream of every nine year old that’s watched it messily dissect a Buick.

So if you bought your own four-story fire-breathing car-crushing robot, what would you do with it?

(A: Anything you wanted to. )

Link to the press release ( Car Buyer’s Notebook via Robots.net)