JIBO

JIBO claims to be "the world's first family robot", and is being launched with an Indiegogo campaign. It's a robot lacking arms or legs; it just has a flexible neck which can look around, and it can respond to touch and voice, talk back to you, and take pictures (swiveling to find people and things to photograph), but it apparently can't actually move around. It appears to be able to monitor your e-mail, voicemail, text messages, etc. (it has WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities, and you apparently configure it with access to your accounts) and be able to tell you that you have a message. It can recognize people by their face, and learn personal habits to better integrate themselves into their lives (and this will be in no way creepy), and can tell stories to children. It can also show pictures and video on its "face". There will be a developer API, and they claim that programming it is similar to using the children's programming language Scratch.

According to its FAQ, you can't rename one of them anything other than JIBO, as it's the only name it answers to; that could perhaps prove problematic if you've got more than one of them.

Links

 * Official site
 * Article