Wired: “Homebrew Robot Raises Hand to Call Attention.” “The ‘Guardian Robot’ is an adorable machine that monitors your twitter feed for “happy” or “sad” updates from friends and then alerts you of the tweets by either raising its hand for a high-five or lowering its head, reports U.K. publication The Guardian. The robot that can sit on your desk will even tweet a reply on your behalf from its own twitter id @guardianrobot.”

TechCrunch: “CrashCorp Demos Augmented Reality iPhone Application“ “CrashCorp, the joint venture between former Digg Lead Architect Joe Stump, and former co-founder of Socialthing, Matt Galligan, have released two videos of a proof-of-concept app developed for the iPhone.”

BSN: “Tourism gets a boost from augmented reality.” “The iTacitus application includes itinerary planning software based on a traveler’s stated interests, be it modern art or Greek history. It lists places to visit that meet the visitor’s criteria, helps them schedule where to go, and how to get there. When on site, the central server downloads appropriate AR content relative to the museum display, building, or famous location. There are several aspects to the program. Superimposed environments overlay 3D objects on the actual scene photographed by the user; you can see gladiators fill the Roman Coliseum. Annotated landscapes show images, text, or run videos about what the mobile device is pointed at, and spatial acoustic overlays put audio clips into the scene.”

ReadWriteWeb: “Augmented Reality: A Human Interface for Ambient Intelligence.“Augmented reality (or AR) is fast becoming as ubiquitous a term as “Web 2.0.” The field is getting noisier by the day, and AR as a field of research now has to co-exist with its status as an industry buzzword. Knowing the difference between the two is important. To do that, we have to examine the field and then revisit the buzzword you may have heard 10 years ago.”

Wired: “Robot Three-Way Portends Autonomous Future.” “n the military these days, robot-human relationships are usually strictly monogamous and definitely subservient: one bot, one human operator — with the human calling most of the shots. But we’re rapidly approaching the day when robots will be able to “think, learn and perform human tasks,” according to Dr. Thomas Killion, the Army’s top scientist.”