This is exactly the kind of example that gets you wondering ‘what can we build next?’.
Happiness Hat shown in the video below is a device that senses whether you’re smiling or not via a bend sensor by the cheek area, and pokes you with a metal spike attached to a servo if you’re not smiling. For more information, visit Core77.com.

happiness hat from Lauren McCarthy on Vimeo.

Miguel Nicolelis, a Brain-Machine Interface researcher, and co-director of the Center for Neuroengineering at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, N.C, is working on a project that could potentially help the paralysed walk again.
He is best known in the field for “his pioneering work in “reading monkey thought”. He and his colleagues implanted electrode arrays into a monkey’s brain that were able to detect the monkey’s motor intent and thus able to control reaching and grasping movements performed by a robotic arm” (wiki)
You can read more about this new project …

Call for Papers: International Journal of Technoethics (IJT)
Submission Deadline: December 1, 2009
Mission Statment of IJT:
The mission of the International Journal of Technoethics (IJT) is to evolve technological relationships of humans with a focus on ethical implications for human life, social norms and values, education, work, politics, law, and ecological impact. This journal provides cutting-edge analysis of technological innovations, research, developments policies, theories, and methodologies related to ethical aspects of technology in society. IJT publishes empirical research, theoretical studies, innovative methodologies, practical applications, case studies, and book reviews. IJT encourages submissions …

(Scroll down to watch trailer. Link to full episodes at www.crunchroll.com: here)
Roboethics Committee is portrayed as a semi-antagonist group in a new Japanese animation called Time of Eve. A good friend of mine sent me the link to this very interesting animation, which brings up several roboethics issues as part of its storyline.
I have always been the kind of person who would intentionally avoid watching Japanese animation because I believe that there’s always more productive things to do than watch anime for hours. But this time, I would like to ask you to …

Below is a video of iRobot’s new robot called chembot which can deform its silicon body to roll and even go through holes. It was presented at the IROS (the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) conference on October 13th – just a couple of days ago.
My first reaction after watching the video was ‘Wow, that robot looks like it can turn into a real creepy monster in the future’. Indeed, news articles on the robot proves that my instincts are not far off at all: DARPA …

Below is David Hanson of Hanson Robotics giving a presentation on some of the robots he has worked on. An interesting thing is his remark that character robotics (and implementing empathy in robots) can be “seeds of hope” for our future with robots.

Dr. Noel Sharkey
Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield, UK
Website: http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~noel/
Numerous media coverage related to roboethics, eg. podcasts, articles in New Scientist etc.