It is easy to get weighed down by daily tasks, never quite feeling like you can catch up to the never-ending to do list in your mind. This is probably why so many "perfect" visions of our future, as depicted in books and movies, feature robotic companions that help take the pressure off their human counterparts. While the in-home robots on the market today are certainly no C-3PO, they're getting more and more adept at assisting with daily tasks. In fact, newer models will likely focus on taking care of your emotional needs as well as your household chores! A robot that helps you with day-to-day household tasks, making your life easier.

When I tell my daughters, ages 6 and 9, that I have a new robot to show them, they perk up. I then take Professor Einstein out of the box. My wife walks into the room: "Ahhh!" This very expressive, very wacky robotic character is a creation of Hanson Robotics, which calls it "your personal genius." Professor Einstein can chat about science, tell jokes, check on the weather, and, naturally, quote Einstein himself.

When I tell my daughters, ages 6 and 9, that I have a new robot to show them, they perk up. I then take Professor Einstein out of the box. My wife walks into the room: "Ahhh!"

When I tell my daughters, ages 6 and 9, that I have a new robot to show them, they perk up. I then take Professor Einstein out of the box. My wife walks into the room: "Ahhh!" This very expressive, very wacky robotic character is a creation of Hanson Robotics, which calls it "your personal genius." Professor Einstein can chat about science, tell jokes, check on the weather, and, naturally, quote Einstein himself.

The artificial intelligence research behind bots_alive promises to usher in lifelike robots at affordable price points. Artificial intelligence is all the rage in robotics these days, and for good reason: Properly implemented, it has the potential to program'bots on the fly. But those toys and others react in predictable ways to changing contexts and situations. One startup, though, purports to have developed an algorithm capable of generating entirely new behaviors dynamically. It's called bots_alive, and it's the brainchild of Brad Knox.

The first robotic barista opened in San Francisco on Monday. SAN FRANCISCO -- Something futuristic is brewing in a shopping complex here. The first robotic barista in the U.S., named "Gordon," started serving up to 120 coffee drinks an hour today-- ironically, just several thousand fee away from a Starbucks in the same complex. "A lot of us spend a lot of time in line waiting for coffee," says Henry Hu, CEO of Cafe X Technologies, the local start-up that created the robot. "And we decided to do something about it."

It's pretty impossible for humanoid robots to not look creepy, even if it's a familiar face, like Albert Einstein. Hanson Robots unleashed its miniature robot dubbed Professor Einstein at CES this week. It's a 14.5" Wi-Fi-connected robot geared toward educating and entertaining its users with the likeness of the late genius Albert Einstein. The robot pairs and interacts with an accompanying iOS and Android app called the Stein-O-Matic, used to teach science and play games, but can also act sort of like a Amazon Alexa or Google Home by reciting facts, solving problems and giving current weather updates. SEE ALSO: Vinci smart headphones have a friggin' screen on them Hanson Robots teamed up with toy inventor Andy Rifkin as its CTO to create the gaming app that has an IQ level which increases the more you interact with Professor Einstein. While ditching the screen has been a tech trend widely recognized at the largest consumer electronics show in the world this year, Hanson Robots is putting a familiar face to its technology, though we have to admit it's still a little creepy, and that's OK. The robots produced by Hanson Robots are eerily lifelike, and produce a wide range of facial expressions and gestures -- Professor Einstein has over 50. "Our end goal is to make AI very smart and to relate with people well, so by giving it a humanlike form it means that we can teach it more what it means to be human," CEO and founder David Hanson tells Mashable. "It can physically explore the world the way that a baby would, and it can socially explore; learn from people." Hanson Robots breaks down its strategy into three areas: extremely humanlike robots, consumer robots (like Professor Einstein) and its cloud AI, called Mind Cloud, intended to learn from the interactions it has with humans. For people who are a little creeped out by an AI that's learning in their home, Hanson ensured us that its AI is programmed to not learn about your personal life. It's not learning about all the people around the world, but what it is doing is learning from those interaction to generalize, said Hanson. "Your individual robot becomes your personal companion, but the Mind Cloud just sort of generally gets smarter from all those interactions.