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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Boston area has become a leading robotics hub, with a larger cluster of related companies than any other area in the U.S., according to a group of panelists assembled for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Enterprise Forum on Robotics Wednesday night.

The group, which consisted of executives from ABB Robotics, Brooks Automation, iRobot, Kiva Systems, North End Technologies and Vecna Technologies, said robotics companies are drawn to the university-rich New England area because of their unique need for highly educated employees from a multitude of disciplines.

While there are some great robots, the panelists said, they … Read more

Two weeks to the day after Apple's iPhone software update wiped third-party applications from the device and disabled unlocked phones, the hackers have struck back.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog posted details of the iPhone Dev Team's latest effort, which once again opens the iPhone up to third-party applications and the ability to use it on any other GSM network than AT&T's. This appears to be a more substantial effort than the one posted earlier in the evening that exploits a vulnerability in a TIFF image file; you can bet that one will be patched fairly … Read more

Photos of the Toyota i-Real robot/car that will debut at the 2007 Tokyo auto show are already making their way across the Web.

But what's all the fuss?

The i-Real is a battery-powered vehicle with three wheels.

The rear wheel can kick back further for a low-to-the-ground fast movement with great stability.

While the i-Real looks neat, it's really no different than other Toyota car/robot hybrids we've written about before.

Remember the i-Foot, the i-Wing and the i-Unit?

If you are interested and want to see more, AutoBlog Green has a nice gallery.

With all the attention paid to iPhone speakers and other related gear, one might imagine that the iPod has fallen off the planet. But rest assured, the cottage industry is still churning out various accessories for the media player; after all, if they're being made for the Zune, then certainly the iPod should be well equipped.

Logic3, which already has made its mark with several iPod-related items in its "i-Station" brand, is continuing that streak with the "i-Station Concert." This speaker-dock system isn't as sleek as previous products in the line, looking something like … Read more

The Macalope was thrilled to see that Steve Jobs has issued another statement about digital music and DRM (tip o' the antlers to BoingBoing).

Let's see what Steve has to say.

I'm here to tell you today that I for one am no longer going to fall into this trap. If the licensing labels offering their content to Apple put more barriers in front of the users, I'm not interested. Do what you feel you need to do for your business, I'll be polite, say thank you, and decline to sign. I won't let Apple … Read more

The latest version of financial analyst firm Piper Jaffray's biannual survey of high school students and technology states the obvious, but also contains some interesting tidbits.

Let's get the "duh" stats out of the way first. In case you were unaware, the survey confirms that Apple is a big player in the portable media player market. Eighty percent of students surveyed by Piper own a portable music player, and 82 percent of those own an iPod of some type. Of those planning to buy a music player in the next year, 78 percent plan to buy … Read more

In a development that could be anywhere interesting, sleep-inducing or potentially even fictitious, Sun Microsystems Chairman Scott McNealy said Samsung is building a Java phone that will have better features and lower cost than Apple's iPhone.

At least, that's what the Associated Press story about a report in the Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.

Java is open-source software that at least in principle lets the same program run without having to be modified for different hardware. It's already widely used on mobile phones, including models from Samsung. What could make this story more interesting is if Samsung is … Read more

It's such a common problem: There you are, wearing your best pair of night-vision goggles, and you can't see the damn keyboard. What's a clandestine operative to do?

iKey claims to have the answer with a LED keyboard that it says is "compatible with NV goggles, featuring filters that remove unwanted light interference" such as halo glows, according to Ubergizmo. It's kind of a version of Stacco Switch's rugged M779 that provides the necessary discretion you won't get with an LED piano lamp. Unfortunately for amateur spies, it seems to be aimed … Read more

The iPhone isn't a true mobile computer yet, but it's on the right track, according to a Mozilla executive.

"Getting a no-compromise web experience on devices requires significant memory (>=64MB) as well as significant CPU horsepower. High end devices today are just approaching these requirements and will be commonplace soon," wrote Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering at Mozilla, in a blog post Tuesday, implying that while the iPhone and its current competitors don't quite have what it takes under the hood to be full-fledged mobile computers, we're not all that far away. … Read more