In my robot book, I talked about a type of robot you can’t see, or at least, it’s not something you would think of as a robot, but it meets the critera that most people would ascribe to a robot: it has sensors, a way of processing the sensor input, and actuators, a way of doing something in the real world in response to the sensing. Here’s a nifty, novelty example: A surfer d00d has built a Web-wired pillow that vibrates in response to wave action. Big waves mean big vibes, small waves, milder vibrations, and bad surf conditions mean no vibrations at all. The data, grabbed via the Web, comes from sensors on wave buoys.
Hardware Beyond the Hype