I've been bookmarking links to videos of the unstoppable Sony SDR-4x for a while now. It's the fourth generation in the Sony Dream Robot series, created to be the successor to Sony's increasingly ugly line of Aibo robot pets. According to the BBC, the SDR-4x sings, dances, surfs, navigates thru obstacles, recognizes faces and expressions, can understand short conversations, and knows more than 60,000 words.

Right now it costs as much as a luxury car, but 10 bucks says this'll be the Furby of Christmas 2012. Quite a long way from the wall-bumping, drink-tray-holding robots of my youth. I can't see stuff like this without my jaw dropping in recognition that the kind of robots I dreamed about as a kid are actually becoming real.