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Fancy spending the afternoon talking at your favorite living room devices? Toshiba’s new robot might be able to let you do just that. With a name that’s inspired by the Italian term “Poco a poco,” which means little by little, the Toshiba Apripoco will enable you to wireless communicate with most remote-controlled devices by using simple voice commands. It was designed to learn how you use your devices “little by little,” hence the name. With a little time, it should be able to tell whether you’re turning on the TV or turning up the AC. And will turn on (or off) the corresponding device accordingly.

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Buying homes may have become more technologically advanced (I bid on my house on eBay) but construction may become a technologically advanced, hands-free adventure, as well.

Professor Behorkh Khoshnevis at the University of California in LA will soon build a house with a $1.5 million robot. The shell is expected to go up in less than 24 hours in April 2007. The second, British project will be built by robots using only concrete and quick-drying gypsum expelled from computer-controlled nozzles on robotic arms to form walls, floors, roofs and even pipes. It is expected to take less than a week to complete though it may not work for a few years.

It won’t quite be a mass production line, but it will eliminate some of the dangers and a lot of the time involved with construction as well as reduce the amount of secondary resources required to produce and transport materials (and workers). It does give the idea of cookie-cutter houses a whole new, and more literal, meaning.

Read [Times Online] via [TreeHugger] Site [Contour Crafting]