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.

So here we are on the verge of another Halloween weekend, and I've yet to be sufficiently scared. That said, as I look back at the year to date, I'm a little freaked out--2010 has had its share of frightening tech moments. Sure, Facebook faced some serious privacy charges, but Firefox now has a plug-in that lets you spy on everyone on your network. You likely heard about the Stuxnet virus that went around not long ago. It appears to have been built to disrupt power grids around the world.