The people at the University of California, San Diego are looking to find out how babies develop and it's importants of understanding how the human brain works. So to do that they built a creepy robotic baby. In cooperation with Japanese robotics firm Kokoro Co., Ltd., the team constructed this rather complicated machine that is meant to mimic the actions of a one-year-old human child. I still can't figure out why they gave it a baby face but they forgot to give it body skin.

The robot, named Diego-san, has over 60 moving parts in its body. Its five-fingered hands are able to grasp objects, and the robot can even stand up from a sitting (in a chair) position. The head contains more than 20 moving parts that allow Diego-san to create facial expressions. The head also contains high-res cameras in the eyes, a speaker in the mouth, and accelerometers in the ears that detect the robot’s movement and position.

Diego-san is also learning while he is being taught which I think is pretty cool for a robot to do but on the other hand if he got mad. That would not be good. It could turn into a really disturbing Chucky movie.

Graphic and image editors can help you create beautiful graphics and give your digital images amazing effects, but they can be expensive. So I can understand that some people just don't want to buy an expensive program just to make a couple of alterations. So I have decided to provide you with some Free Graphic and Image Editors that can fit your needs. These programs can be used by graphic designers, photographers, animators, and artists. Some have basic functionality, for the amateur or learner, others are very powerful and professional, suitable for the professional.

Project Dogwaffle

Project Dogwaffle offers both freeware and commercial versions, the freeware version is fully functional, lacking only the advanced layer and scripting tools of the full version. Project Dogwaffle (current version 1.2) is based on its commercial big brother, Project Dogwaffle 2.0. It’s a lighter, yet powerful tool for graphic designers and animators. Its features include realistic paint effects, a frame-based animation tool, the standard paint tools common to most modern bitmap paint programs, an alpha channel for transparency effects and support for plugins.

Pixen H3

Pixen is an innovative graphics editor for the Mac. It’s designed from top to bottom for pixel artists—people who make low-resolution raster art like the sprites you see in old video games. But it’s great for artists of all arenas: Pixen is like a very powerful MSPaint or a simpler, more agile Photoshop. And best of all, it’s Free!

Inkscape

Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor just as powerful (perhaps better?) to Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format.
Inkscape does not have all the features of the leading vector editors, the latest versions provide for a large portion of basic vector graphics editing capabilities. It is not unknown for Inkscape to be used on different projects, it can be successfully used to create web graphics, technical diagrams, icons, creative art, logos and maps. It can also be used on Windows and Mac OS.

PhotoFiltre

PhotoFiltre is a great freeware bitmap graphics editor program. I have been using this one personally for my photography and giving it that vintage look. This program has a lot of different features. One that I like the most is the quick contrast/hue and saturation buttons because you can check out the effects and immediately and easily correct the image if you’re not satisfied with its quality.

Paint.net

Paint.NET is a free image and photo editor, it features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
It was originally intended as a free replacement for Microsoft Paint, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool, not quite as powerful as Photoshop or Gimp, but a damn good replacement. It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.

Pixia

Pixia is a freeware bitmap graphics editor program originally developed for the Japanese Manga but has become very popular with all graphic designers.
This Japanese application, is also available in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Polish, Korean and German. The program supports multiple layers, transparency effects, standard file formats and a number of RGB file formats including .PSD. The main file extension used by this program is .PXA.

So when I was on my trip back home. I came across a program that would come in handy for me. Seeing how I'm always working on three computers and needing to transfer files. I needed to find another form of saving my documents and having access to them on all my platforms. Then I found Live Mesh Beta.



With Live Mesh, you can synchronize files with all of your devices, so you always have the latest versions handy. You can access your files from any device or from the web, easily share them with others, and get notified whenever someone changes a file.Working on one computer, but need a program from another? No problem. Use Live Mesh to connect to your other computer and access its desktop as if you were sitting right in front of it. Live Mesh has a lot of different features that allow you to share folders with others and manage your folders within Mesh. It also gives you a live desktop that is accessible through a web browser and they provide you with 5GB of free space to save on your Live Mesh Desktop. So check out Live Mesh Beta and let me know what you think. If you have a Windows Live ID you can use that to start your Live Mesh Beta account.

ooVoo is an iChat-like video conferencing and chat tool for Windows, loaded with useful, powerful tools that make it a viable alternative for small work groups using conference calls and screen-sharing applications as well as personal use. They currently have a free plan that lets you have these features.

* 2-way video calls.
* Record and send 1 minute video messages.
* Create 1 video chat room to embed on a website.
* Friends without ooVoo can join a call with you from their browser.
* 6-way text chat.
* Send files up to 5MB at a time.



If you decided that you want to upgrade your plan then it give you more options like:

* Video call with 3, 4 or 6 participants in high resolution.
* Collaborate with your team, share a desktop and see everyone at the same time, and more.

ooVoo gives you many options for different plans that can fit your needs whether it is for personal use or for business. ooVoo is changing the way people communicate and connect online with its high-quality video and audio and multi-user capabilities that allow up to six people to talk face-to-face with each other at the same time. Using ooVoo is easy and fun, all consumers need is a computer, a broadband connection and a Web camera. In addition, ooVoo offers video messaging to an email or another ooVoo account, text messaging, and file sharing. Let me know if you have used ooVoo before and if you like what it has to offer.

Simplify Media is a FREE program that allows you to connect to your computer and listen to your music collection while your not at home. It also allows you to share your music library with up to 30 people. You can browse and play all your favorite music with itunes, winamp, WMP11 on Vista and Frontrow and Rythembox. They also have a iphone app that works on the iphone and the ipod touch. So you have full access even on your phone. Smiplify Media can also send all your shared information to a UPnP enabled devices like the Xbox 360.

This is a great option for people who have gigantic collections of music and want to listen to it while on the go.(wink). Its also good for people who like to share their collections with others. This is also a great app for those with an iphone and ipod touch. Check it out. Simplify Media for more information.

Introducing Zoho Show 2.0: The online tool for making powerful presentations.Whether you are a professional, a teacher, a student, a businessman, a salesman or anyone looking to put together a cool presentation. Zoho Show's pre-built themes, clipart and shapes coupled with features like drag-and-drop makes it an easy application to use.

Here are some of the features of Zoho Show

• Access from anywhere, anytime
  Access, import, edit and share presentations from anywhere and anytime
• Sharing and Collaboration
  No more emailing around of presentation files. Share your presentations with your friends/colleagues and the shared presentations can be viewed/edited with just a browser.
• Present from Remote
  Give a presentation to a client who is half a globe away. Do your demos while at your seat.
• Embedding
  Make your presentations public. Embed them in your blog or website for easy viewing of your readers.More
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And now for the best part - Zoho Show is completely FREE for personal use.

I have used this application a couple of times for school projects. Here is an example of the application and the presentations.