"Secret Thoughts," a play by British novelist and playwright David Lodge, is introducing audiences to a hot new actor--Arthur the robot. Arthur comes onstage for about 20 seconds, scans the room, and collides with furniture in the production, which is described as "science against art, and morality against indulgence." In it, Ralph, a married, groundbreaking cognitive scientist, meets Helen, a recently bereaved novelist, and "sparks fly" (presumably not from the robot short-circuiting). It's really just a walk-on (roll-on) part for the remote-controlled bot, who's made mostly of fiberglass. But it leads to a pivotal conversation between the characters about the emotional intelligence of robots.

TOKYO--Japan's robotics response to the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been disappointing so far, but a 5-ton rescue robot developed after the 1995 Kobe earthquake may see some action at the facility soon. Created by Fukuoka-based Tmsuk in 2007, the T-53 Enryu (PDF) is a hulking, 9-foot-tall machine on treads with a bulldozer attachment and giant arms to move debris. Enryu (or "Rescue Dragon") is expected to clear highly radioactive rubble at the plant to provide machines and people better access, but it may need to be shielded with lead to protect it from radiation. It would be the second Japanese robot on the scene following a radiation detector robot, which apparently hasn't been used much. Each of Enryu's arms has six joints and can hoist about 220 pounds.

Swiss automation firm ABB is showing off a concept factory robot called Frida that's more humanoid than the typical one-armed drones on the assembly line. The two-armed Frida is being billed as a "harmless robotic co-worker for industrial assembly." Of course, any robot described as being "harmless" should be treated with extreme caution. It has seven-axis arms, flexible grippers, and camera-based parts location and runs via ABB's IRC5 controller. It's designed as a lightweight, portable complement to human parts assembly.

This six-legged terror from Japan's Kondo Kagaku can do a neat little staccato dance before it pounces. Japan's Kondo Kagaku has a new spider robot with six legs and a palpable creep factor, especially when it drums on a table like in this video. The KMR-M6 is targeted at hobbyists, researchers, and people who want to scare others. Each of its legs has two Kondo KRS-2552HV ICS servo motors--one for the horizontal rotation and another for the vertical movement. The bot seems to have a maximum ground clearance of about 4 inches.

If so, Japan's Furukawa Kiko has just the thing for you--a robot scooper that can scrape up gooey spills without leaving a smidgen behind. The Niigata-based factory equipment maker says its Switl "robot hand" is the first of its kind in the world and it's patent pending. As seen in the vid below, it scrapes up mayonnaise and ketchup spills completely, and can then deposit them. The Furukawa Kiko Web site has no details on how it works, or what its name means, but there is another video showing it being used in a manufacturing line for baked buns. Furukawa says the technology could be used outside the food industry.

It sounds like something out of "Star Wars" (where Luke was nursed back to health by 2-1B). But it's here, and according to a study we wrote about this week, robot surgery to remove cancerous prostate glands is safe in the long term and in fact may be more beneficial than traditional surgery. Granted, setups like the da Vinci robot surgical system still require the help of their human overlords, but that doesn't mean they're not a little bit creepy. Some things just take an exclusively human touch. A robotic mechanic working on my car is OK.

The nightmare of robot babies continues apace in Japan, a rapidly aging society where human babies are going out of style. Babyloid is the latest cyber-tot to spring from the minds of engineers with little apparent regard for how scary their progeny are. Creator Masayoshi Kano of Nagoya's Chukyo University and Ifbot fame has been showing off Babyloid, developed two years ago, in presentations sponsored by the local government. He recently explained the robot in a talk at the Artificial Intelligence Research Promotion Foundation. Inspired by a baby beluga whale, Babyloid is designed to be a therapeutic robot for depressed seniors, similar to Takanori Shibata's robot seal Paro.

Japanese demon-spawn Telenoid, the nightmarish fetus-like telepresence robot, has had a little half-baked runt of its own. As we reported at a January preview, Elfoid is a humanoid-shaped cell phone that tries to look cute. Osaka University roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, never a stranger to controversy with his lifelike robot clones, outdid himself again with his Eraserhead-like baby. A few details of the android (not Android) phone were released at a press conference today in Tokyo. Elfoid is covered with creamy polyurethane foam and is about 8 inches long.

Team Vstone's Hobby bot Robovie-PC is the fastest robot marathon runner in the land, completing the race in 54 hours, 57 minutes, and 50 seconds. The word's first bipedal robot marathon wrapped up in Osaka, Japan, over the weekend with a 15-inch droid taking home the prize after a near photo finish. Team Vstone's Robovie-PC won the Robomarafull race in 54 hours, 57 minutes, and 50 seconds, with Robot Center Team's Robovie-PC Lite nipping at his heels and crossing the finish line just a second behind. The other three robo-runners, including two from Osaka Institute of Technology, had dropped out of the 26.2-mile endurance contest, which was organized by robot maker Vstone and the Osaka government. Winner Robovie-PC is a high-end kit robot with 20 moving joints and weighing about 5 pounds.

NASA's tough-looking Robonaut 2 is slated to ride the Space Shuttle Discovery into orbit this month, and now Japan says it wants to shoot its own humanoid robot to the International Space Station too. Japan's space agency JAXA says it may put a humanoid on the ISS in 2013 so it can watch over crew members while they sleep and monitor their health and stress levels. Engineers at the University of Tokyo and staff at advertising giant Dentsu apparently are working on the space droid. It would be intended for communication--sending pics to Earth via Twitter and boosting public interest in the ISS. NASA, on the other hand, wants humanoid robots to perform tasks on space walks in the future. "We are thinking in terms of a very human-like robot that would have facial expressions and be able to converse with the astronauts," JAXA's Satoshi Sano was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.