Now, I’ve only read a little bit of Asimov, but as an occasional sci-fi fan, I certainly acknowledge him to be one of the founding fathers of the genre. His ideas about robots have actually shaped and informed robot research for decades, which I think is one of the marks of a great sci-fi writers. Now, as you may know, Asimov died in 1992. The Robot series, as it is known, was written primarily in the 40s. Now, if Asimov had wanted more Robot stories written, don’t you think he would have done so himself?

Apologies for the headline, but it was too appropriate to resist. It seems that there is a feature of uTorrent 2.0 now in beta that automatically detects network congestion and self-limits bandwidth to lessen it. This might provide some much-needed relief to ISPs that feel a disproportionate amount of traffic is P2P. I’m not sure whether to call this self-policing action capitulation or accommodation, but either way it probably needed to happen.

The number of techniques for getting content from your PC to your TV is getting alarmingly high. It’s possible that it’s so simple at this point that anyone can put out a product and sell a few — so you can either get a basic one cheap now, or wait for the inevitable breakthrough product that will do something awesome but cost a bundle. The FlipShare ain’t that breakthrough, but it does look like a nice, simple way to watch your home videos on the TV.

At major events like CES, thousands upon thousands of little USB sticks are distributed, full of assets, press releases, and so on. Stop by a booth or show, get a USB stick. Usually they’re only 1 or 2GB (and dog slow), so you don’t end up using them more than once and they end up in a drawer or sitting on a table somewhere in Vegas. Here’s an idea: why not use these Boardy USB sticks? Sure, it’s not really clear how big they are or how much they cost, but they can’t be much more in bulk than all those crappy plastic ones.

I had high hopes for “Avatar.” I’ve seen James Cameron talking about it twice, and interviewed one of the motion capture artists, Reuben Langdon. But what I’m seeing in this trailer is a jumble of cliches and unconvincing, at least on the small screen, CG effects.

Why they picked electric blue cat-people instead of some truly alien species is a mystery to me; with a less humanoid critter, suspension of disbelief is much easier. But our brains are tuned to detect the problems with these almost-human special effects, and the whole thing is going to look fake as a result.

I’ve always felt bad for fish. Not just in that they’re fish, but that all those in captivity (and many in the wild) just spend all day swimming in circles. Take that great video of the enormous aquarium in Okinawa — there’s a freaking whale shark in there, used to cruising the ocean; now, even in the second-biggest aqua-enclosure in the world, it’s essentially doing laps. If only they had made a gigantic labyrinth aquarium like this one, the whale shark and its weird-looking friends might actually have somewhere to go.

It seems like when you watch movies where there are scientists out in the field, they inevitably have a hard-case laptop bag that they just set on a rock and open up. Boom, laptop! Well, those big ol’ chrome suitcases may look cool, but they’re a bit unwieldy. Better to get something a little smaller and softer, yet robust enough to withstand a few kicks. The Viper from Booq (not to be confused with the harder Vyper) seems to fit the bill.

A helmet-mounted radar unit seems redundant with the kind of crazy surveillance and intel they already have available or in the pipes, but hey, whatever helps our boys. While satellite and air-based imaging are invaluable to the modern field commander, an individual infantryman has little feedback in an more local tactical situation. So why not have an imaging system for individuals?

I don’t know how you could forget, considering we’ve been posting Droid updates just about every day, but according to our calculations, tomorrow is October 28th: the day Droid drops. Now, we don’t expect the Droid to set the mobile world on its head exactly, but we’re pretty sure that it’s going to be the premiere Android device — until the next premiere device comes out.

Even cameras with mechanical shutters, it seems, aren’t immune to sensor carryover issues. It seems that when you’re doing that famous 8FPS continuous shooting, it’s possible under certain circumstances that a ghost image will be present in the next image shot.

Canon says it’s “barely noticeable,” but someone must have noticed anyway because they’re having to issue a fix. It doesn’t occur in single shots or movies; I’m guessing it’s just a timing issue where the sensor isn’t completely reset before the new exposure begins.

Well, you can stop trying now. You’re not going to win that costume party. I’m going to come to it in a monstrous Gomora costume as big as a tree, shooting smoke and lighting up my monster eyes. Unless you come dressed as Ultraman and vanquish me (unlikely) I’ll be taking home first prize.

With the DSi still fresh on the market (relatively so anyway), it seems strange that Nintendo would want to replace it so quickly. But hey, they did it with the GBA, so why not? Japanese paper Nikkei reports that Nintendo is planning a new plus-size version of the device, which is to sport a 4″ screen (or screens). Sounds good to me, although the DSi already enlarged and improved the DS Lite’s perfectly good screen. So a 4″ one would probably be more for the real hardcore kids.

When I first heard that Microsoft was going to be publicizing Windows 7 in the legendarily offensive “Family Guy,” I thought “Wow, either Microsoft is cooler than I thought or they’ve never actually seen the show.” Unsurprisingly, it seems to have been the latter.

It appears that reports of 360 exclusivity for Netflix have been greatly exaggerated. You could always hack it onto your console, but this is a little more official. The streaming-video service will arrive on PS3s next month, and current Netflix subscribers will be able to watch to their heart’s content at no extra charge. However, in a rather absurd turn, streaming will only be enabled when you have a special Netflix disc in your PS3. What the hell is that about?

The inclusion of both Wi-Fi and a microphone on the DSI made it a favorite for rumors about phone functionality — and while we’ve seen voice chat in some games, there hasn’t been an official channel for that that I know of. But if new rumors, based on a support page mentioning a DSi Speak Channel, are true, then the most popular handheld in the world will be joining the most popular console in the world in having serious voice chat functionality.

Say hello to DSiPhone.