The Cue robot delighted my children and scared the crap out of my cat

When I received my review unit of the Cue robot from Wonder Workshop it had a lot of hype to live up to. We’ve reviewed the company’s products before and enjoyed them, so my expectations were high. I’m happy to report I was not disappointed.

The Cue is designed for ages 11 and up and features an AI chat-bot that encourages kids to learn coding, play games, and comes in your choice of four distinct personalities.

Credit: Nicole Gray

It’s important to take your time choosing your Cue’s personality, as only one is included with your purchase. You’ll have to pay to unlock another personality in the app, which is a better alternative than the developers only creating one.

At $4.99 each, it won’t break the bank if you decide to make a change, but it’s worth giving them a shot. The AI part of Cue’s chat-bot directs it to try and tailor its conversation based on your previous interactions.

Cue, from the very start, feels like your robot. It sends you text messages asking how you’re feeling, it tells you jokes, and has a ton of personality thanks to a series of Easter eggs. When I made it spin around it circles it started singing, and pressing the button on top of it repeatedly also triggered unexpected reactions.

It was ready to roll right out of the box. I spent about two minutes setting up the app and I was able to control Cue immediately, no coding required. You can steer the robot manually or, thanks to several proximity sensors and processor, Cue can be set to explore the surroundings. It does a pretty good job of avoiding obstacles – though it will drive right off the edge of a technology reporter’s desk without hesitation.

We had a blast putting Cue on “avoid” mode and watching our baby chase it around, but it should be noted that this isn’t really a toy. Cue is solid and heavy and really is designed for older kids.

Credit: Nicole Gray

Part of the fun of playing with Cue is creating routines or “codes” for it to follow that take advantage of its sensors. I had a lot of fun making Cue dance and play sound clips of my voice. The possibilities for entertainment are endless – you can store several sounds and use your app to play them through the robot’s speaker. My cat was quite shocked when Cue began meowing back at her, to the delight of my entire family.

Cue is expressive, which is something I wasn’t expecting. The app uses push notifications to make it seem like your robot buddy is text-messaging you, and it manages to stay fun even after the novelty wears off.

But I found myself wishing Cue would talk to me outside of the app. The robot itself has prerecorded quotes you can trigger, but it doesn’t chat back and forth with you.

Wonder Workshop’s Cue is an excellent robot for ages 11 and up. It is the most well-constructed “toy” robot I’ve played with. And it’s also the most well-endowed when it comes to features — thanks to its multiple sensors, LED display, and internal speaker.

Credit: Nicole Gray

Cue might be built for kids, but it’s fun enough for adults to enjoy. The incredible design and manufacturing quality make the $199 price completely worth it. You can pick one up from Wonder Workshop here .

Digitimes: iPad 2 Will Ship With 5 New Features

Digitimes has cited a report from Chinese news portal Economy Daily News which suggests that Apple’s next generation iPad will incorporate five new features, adding video calling, lighter body, USB ports, new display technology and new 3-axis gyroscopes.

The new features have long been subject to speculation, different sources have already suggested that Apple will feature its FaceTime technology in the iPad 2. With both front and back cameras, users will be able to use the FaceTime service on their iPad, contacting friends and family on their iPhone 4, iPod Touch and Mac computers.

It has also been rumoured that Apple were experimenting with using carbon fiber panels and utilising thinner glass, reducing the mass of the iPad, a device that is currently considerably heavier than other tablet devices in the market. Introducing Apple’s Retina Display technology, coupled with thinner and lighter glass, will ensure high-resolution output and colour performance whilst making the device more portable.

The mention of USB ports is very interesting, particularly as Apple users have long campaigned for them to be added to their tablet devices. This would also signal that iOS would need to be updated to include file management support, something Apple has never offered within its operating system previously.

By adding 3-axis gyroscopes, its possible that Apple will usher in a new wave of tablet physics games, allowing the company to target gamers and younger customers.

Apple understandably remains tight-lipped about its plans, we can expect more information to become available at the beginning of 2011.

Kinect Hack Unleashes Unofficial Lightsaber Action

When the USB interface for Microsoft’s Kinect Xbox accessory was open-sourced , we knew that when we saw developers rushing to add compatibility for Mac computers, hacking the device to introduce rudimentary Augmented Reality support to systems, a Star Wars Lightsaber hack would not be too far from being realised.

Official support of a Star Wars game is almost a certainty but developers didn’t want to wait that long to get their Lightsaber fix. A YouTube user, going by the name Ankeyan, utilised the newly created OpenKinect drivers, added some image processing, tracking and rendering using OpenCV and managed to output a real-time Lightsaber effect using just his PC.

Programming the Kinect to monitor his position and the wooden stick in his hands, Ankeyan was able to adapt his image processing software to render a Lightsaber effect over the stick and leave YouTube viewers suitably impressed.

Also included for your viewing pleasure is a video of the Lightsaber hack in action:

The video follows an interesting iRobot style demonstration by an MIT student and the news that Microsoft has reportedly already sold 1.3 million Kinect units since launch.

Whilst Microsoft and LucasArts might be a little annoyed at the Star Wars party starting before they got the chance to release offerings, all that hacks like this can do is increase demand for such games, surely?