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We’re not the biggest theatre-goers around here (though we’ve been known to take in the odd Phantom of the Opera performance), but this is one play we would jump at the chance to see. Called — quite fittingly — Robots, the musical stars three autonomous robots developed by Bluebotics, a company which specializes in service bots. The story revolves around a lonely human man who lives in isolation with just his robots, and what happens when a woman threatens to visit him in the not too distant future. Yeah, like we haven’t heard this one a million times. The play opens on May 1st at the Barnabe Theatre in Servion, Switzerland, and will run until May 17th.

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Our own Engadget Japanese had an opportunity to play with Toshiba’s odd little WS206T for Japanese carrier Willcom — one of the concept devices demoed at CES, for particularly observant readers and rabid Toshiba fans — and came away largely unimpressed. Shoving a thin, internet-enabled tablet into an old-school leather notebook sounds cool and all, but the problem is that the hardware’s weak — the screen’s smaller than it could be, Willcom’s PHS network tops out at just a few hundred kbps, there’s no voice calling, and it runs some weird widget-based custom UI on top of Windows CE. What’s more, it’s a single-touch resistive display, and the UI’s said to be annoyingly inconsistent. On the upside, it’ll only run ¥2980 (about $30) a month for unlimited data, including the cost of the hardware itself, when it launches later this month — just don’t expect a product that’s going to change your life and win you friends.
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Against all odds, GM and Segway let us inside their precious P.U.M.A. prototype, and we went for a quick jaunt down 18th St. We couldn’t drive it, unfortunately, but there was plenty of action to be had from the passenger side. Starting from a rest on four wheels — the main powered wheels and the front two “safety” wheels; we never touched the back two to the ground — the contraption shoves itself up onto two wheels quite gracefully, with the passenger compartment moving slightly independently from the wheelbase and floor. It was a bit odd, but not at all unpleasant, and we were soon zipping down the road. Since the P.U.M.A. is self-balancing, we felt way less force when accelerating and decelerating than we would in a car, since our body was being “leaned” into it instead of pulled along. Turning on a dime is quite fun as well, and we could see this thing making itself quite at home on city streets. While it remains to be seen if GM and Segway can commercialize this in time, and for the right price, we’re fairly enamored — at least it’s something different, and it’s already twice as interesting as Segway ever managed to be.

Camera work and moral support courtesy of Autoblog Green’s Sebastian Blanco.
Gallery: Engadget’s wild ride in the P.U.M.A.

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You know, sometimes it’s just the simple things in life that really bring a smile to one’s face. Take this cable, for instance. At first glance, it’s really nothing more than a USB extension cable (USB A Male-to-mini USB) with an odd protrusion in the middle. Sort of like a snake that’s only halfway done digesting its latest meal. Gross analogies aside, that bulge is actually an SD card reader that’s also capable of handling SDHC, miniSD and microSD formats. The whole cord measures 2.43 feet long and costs just $11.99 — can you say “geek stocking stuffer?”
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We’ve already investigated every single nook and crannie involved in Sony Ericsson’s 12 megapixel Idou, but here’s something we haven’t seen: an associated stylus. It’s difficult to tell at the moment if SE plans to toss this in with the Idou (or whatever it ends being called) like Nokia did when it threw in a guitar pick with the 5800 XpressMusic, but either way, you can consider our interest piqued. Not that we’re fans of using a stylus over our own digits, mind you, but we are fond of random, if not unnecessary accessories. Save the lecture, we realize that’s odd.

[Thanks, Jesper]
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By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re constantly throwing things at your TV because the darn thing just doesn’t go loud enough for you, might I suggest this handy, yet unusual, universal remote control from ELPA. The design throws years and years of remote control ergonomics out the window, in favor of integrating a pop-up speaker in the lid. When used in conjunction with the included receiver unit connected to your TV, the remote’s speaker basically brings the sound to you. While it looks a bit odd at first, I don’t think it’s terrible idea, given developers have already found some unique uses for the speaker featured on the Wiimote.

The RC-25SP Universal Speaker Remote is available from ELPA for about $40.

[ ELPA Universal Remote With Built-in Speaker ] VIA [ Japan Today ]

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Back in 2007 the NUUT beat the Kindle to retail by a few months, but its plain styling and lack of features meant it couldn’t compete — especially for the same $300 price point. Now the successors must battle for supremacy and this time it’s Neolux running a bit late, just now announcing the NUUT2. It’s a complete redesign that, oddly enough, makes it look more like the original Kindle, complete with an odd little auxiliary strip display. The NUUT2 has a 6-inch, 600 x 800 display offering eight shades of gray (twice that of the original but half that of the Kindle 2), 1GB of storage, SD card expansion, and WiFi as well. The biggest news is native support for PDF along with a bevy of other file types, but given this isn’t likely to appear outside of South Korea it, like its predecessor, probably won’t make much of a splash.

[Via MobileRead, thanks Emil]
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We’re not sure what sort of shenanigans ARM gets up to, but it managed to amass itself quite the interesting collection of netbooks for its MWC booth. Information was scant, but they were showing that Freescale i.MX-based Pegatron netbook and nettop we saw at CES, an ultrawide 11.1-inch Snapdragon-based netbook from Wistron, a Snapdragon-based convertible tablet netbook from Inventec Alaska, and a totally odd “tech demo” of a Qualcomm-based Wistron MID semi-running a sketch version of Windows Mobile 6.5. Most all of the systems were in some level of prototype form, and seemed unbearably slow at running whatever prototype flavor of Linux they happened to have, while the MID didn’t really seem to operate at all, at least to our touch. Still, it’s clear that Snapdragon and Freescale i.MX are allowing for some pretty wild and thin form factors while still rocking decent battery life.
Gallery: ARM’s stash of netbook oddities and a Windows Mobile 6.5 MID

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