Any time of year is the perfect time to buy a robot for yourself or someone who needs more robots in their life, but this particular time of year is even perfecter than most: The holidays are approaching, all kinds of things are on sale, and nobody will ask questions if a whole bunch of new robots suddenly show up in your house. To help you decide which robots to buy for yourself and which to buy for yourself and for other people, we've put together a brand new edition of our annual Robots Gift Guide. It's stuffed with giftable robots ranging from affordable to ridiculous, and we promise that if you don't find something you like, we'll feel bad about it and be sad. Also, don't forget that we've got robot gift guides going back like five years (here: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012), and since we try to mix them up every year, they're great places for even more ideas for robots that are probably way cheaper now than when we first posted about them. And remember: While we provide prices and links to places where you can buy these items, we're not endorsing any in particular, and a little bit of searching may result in better deals (all prices are in U.S. dollars).

It is with much rejoicing that today we can share that one of our favorite robotics startups, Dash Robotics, is acquiring another of our favorite robotics startups, Bots Alive. Usually, we don't cover acquisitions, or when we do, it's with resigned skepticism--all too often, one company gets completely swallowed by another, and the things that made them unique and exciting simply vanish. The sense that we get from talking with Dash Robotics' CEO Nick Kohut and Bots Alive founder Brad Knox is that the amazing things that Bots Alive does fit right in with the equally amazing but totally different things that Dash Robotics does, and that together, they'll be able to come up with some totally cool (and totally affordable) robotic toys with sophisticated personalities built right in. Part of the reason that we're fans of Dash Robotics and Bots Alive is that they're both successful examples of taking robotics research and turning it directly into a compelling product. Dash Robotics turned UC Berkeley's DASH pop-up hexapod robot into a skittery and blisteringly fast toy called Kamigami that's now being sold in partnership with Mattel for US $50, while Bots Alive's software runs on your phone and gives a $20 Hexbug more brains and personality than an enthusiastic and mildly well trained puppy.

Mike Salem from Udacity's Robotics Nanodegree is hosting a series of interviews with professional roboticists as part of their free online material. Nick is a former robotics postdoc at Stanford and received his PhD in Control Systems from UC Berkeley. At Dash Robotics, Nick handles team-building and project management. You can find all the interviews here. We'll be posting one per week on Robohub.