Imagine if you were to chop off Johnny Five’s head and put him on your dashboard. I realize that sounds gruesome, and I’m sure someone actually did that at the end of the original Short Circuit, but just imagine that cute little head on your dash having loving expressions, and showing you the way to go home.

This is essentially the role of AIDA (Affective Intelligent Driving Assistant). This robot head not only serves as a GPS Navigation system, but it actually has expressions. It’s eyes will look happy when you’re going the right way, and become a warning sign when you are not. There is a video of this intriguing concept after the jump if you aren’t already sold on it yet.

AIDA is more than a navigation system, though. It is intelligent enough to remember where you have been, and from this information determines your driving habits. It uses a lot of sensors to gather intel, and will even let you know when you’re low on gas, and where is the best place to stop for gasoline on your way.

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Take a good look at this potato-masher on a tripod. It looks like a three-legged mechanical spider, doesn’t it? Just to let you know, these legs are not designed for moving, so you can forget your science fiction dreams, for now.

In fact, there is probably more science fact than fiction in this particular device. This was on display at the Taiwan broadband show by Ericsson to show what a computer might look like in the future.

That’s right, this device that you see here is a computer. Actually, it is more of a model of what the computer could look like, and there is a working model of this product after the jump. There is also video of it after the jump as well.

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One of the scariest things in combat is that the enemy could be anywhere, and you wouldn’t know it until it was too late.

This is why the military is developing a miniature helmet-mounted radar system (HMRS). Think of it as radar for the head, to let you know if people are around you.

The range on this guy is about 25 meters, and it is very lightweight at 2.5 pounds. One of those pounds is actually on the helmet itself. I’m not certain what the power source would be used for this guy, but it would have to be built to last.

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You got to admit that Ropid the robot looks like it should have been in the recently released Astro Boy movie. By the way, that movie is actually pretty good, just so you know.

Ropid is the creation of a Kyoto based group known as Robo Garage, and it has the ability to run and jump. By the way, the robot is programmed to jump with a vocal command. In other words, if you say “jump”, then the robot may not say “how high”, but it will jump as high as it can, which is 8 centimeters high.

That’s not bad considering Ropid measures 38 centimeters tall, and weighs 16 kilograms. The robot has 29 joints and four gyro-sensors, and is powered by a lithium-ion battery. By the way, the vocal commands will also run when you tell it to run, and stop when you say stop. Now if it could run and jump, perhaps it could beat the Olympic long jump record.

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A designer named Alan Sien Wei Hshieh has developed a new way of exchanging business cards that does not involve any paper. His MelonCard, which is just a concept at this point, is an idea ahead of its time whose time has come.

After all, don’t you think it’s odd in this digital age that we still exchange these little paper rectangles every time we want to do business with someone?

In the age of the MelonCard, everyone would have one of these devices that you see here. This card-size piece of scratch resistant glass would be attached to a thin plastic strip that would have its own flash memory, Bluetooth, and power supply.

If two businesspeople want to exchange information, then they would simply slap two Meloncards together like a high-five. Apparently, two accelerometers onboard automatically exchange digital info, so you can contact your contact later.

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This particular chair is on display at the Digital Contents Expo in Tokyo this week, but since it is on wheels, I am surprised it was not on display last week at the Tokyo Motor Show.

It looks like it would be quite a comfortable chair, doesn’t it? Of course, if you are claustrophobic, you probably don’t want it closing you up. There is a picture of this closed mobile cocoon after the jump.

This is the “Media Vehicle”, a virtual reality chair/capsule created by Iwata-Yano Laboratory at the University of Tsukuba. The purpose of the spherical screen is so that the user can be in a virtual reality environment.

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Ah, Rubiks’ Cube, you just won’t die. Ever since your flash in the pan fad heyday in the early eighties, you still have a little glow left even today.

Perhaps this is why some designer made a Rubik’s Lamp. It is made of 26 smaller cube-like pieces that somehow fit together. The end result is some sort of multi-colored lighting experience that will only be un-trippy if you solve the puzzle.

The next Rubik’s Cube is tied into a franchise. I suppose that you could make a Rubik’s Cube out of anything with some stickers, and that is what was done with this special edition Transformers AllSpark.

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Some of you might remember a scene from the film Kate and Leopold where Hugh Jackman is complaining that he has to plunge a General Electric toaster one and a half times to make toast. “Pushing the toast down twice produces charcoal, and pushing it once only produces warm bread.”

At this point, Meg Ryan responds: “You know what? No one gives a rat’s @$$ that you have to plunge the toast twice, because everybody has to plunge the toast twice!”

It’s an age old problem, isn’t it? We just can’t get our toast done right. However, this concept toaster uses two panes of glass to toast the bread, so you can see if it is done right.

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