When I was a little kid, I was lucky enough to get an Tomy OmniBot from Santa for Christmas. For 1980s toy technology in the age of Star Wars, it was the coolest gift I ever got. Using a remote control, you could drive him around the house or program him to move by himself using cassette tapes. Yes, it could play music from and store programs on cassette tapes. The OmniBot also had a removable serving tray for serving drinks, had digital clock! and best of all could transmit your voice from a microphone embedded in the remote control. It was very cool, looked like a R2-D2 and was pretty big. Well, it's now the 21st century and Tomy has finally unleased the next generation in high-tech personal robotic toys, the amazing i-SOBOT ($200).

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the new Tomy i-SOBOT is now considered the world's smallest humanoid robot. Unlike the huge OmniBots of the 1980s, the i-SOBOT is really tiny at only 6 1/2" tall, but is light years ahead in advanced robotic technologies. This biped robot doesn't simply roll around and make beeps like bots of the past. The i-SOBOT walks, talks, dances, performs karate, does somersaults, does push-ups, duels, plays air guitar and does about 180 other preprogrammed individual movements. These movements can even be combined into 240 move sequences, it can respond to voice commands and for more fun can be controlled manually with the remote control.

The amazing thing isn't what it can do based on it's size, it's how smooth and lifelike it does them. The i-SOBOT uses up 17 advanced servo motors with built-in clutches, has 2 gyro-sensors for optimal balance and 23 points of articulation throughout its entire body including the neck, arms, hands, legs, and feet. It has four modes: manual control, special actions, programmed sequences, and voice command. It's hard to describe this robot, because it really needs to be seen to be believed, so check out the videos below to see it in action. This would be a cool gift for geeks, robot lovers and sci-fi fans of all ages. Very cool, but when these things start thinking on their own, goodbye human race and greetings micro humanoids!

VIDEO: This pretty much sums it up!

VIDEO: i-SOBOT Tummy Hurts - Hilarious

VIDEO: i-SOBOT in Action!