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Last time I stayed at an Ibis hotel, I had a good experience. Quick service, decent decor, and a great location in central Busan, South Korea. Sadly, it lacked a robot.

The international chain is making up for this shortcoming by offering something no guest can do without: a robot that paints your sleep patterns.

In a decidedly wacky PR stunt being held in Paris, Berlin, and London, Ibis commissioned a robot arm to turn select guests' sleep data into painted canvases.

The Sleep Art project involves an ABB industrial robot and a special mattress equipped with 80 sensors. … Read more

We know "Star Wars" fans love to pamper their pets in the form of Wampug costumes and massive AT-AT cat condos. There's a new entry into the genre: an All Terrain Scout Transport cat playhouse.

Buffy is the name of the lucky feline to benefit from an owner with some woodworking skills and an incurable case of fandom. The bipedal walker model is crafted from scraps left over from a home renovation and took four weekends to complete.… Read more

Apparently, people-shaped pillows for lonely folks have been around for a while, but I just found out about this particular variation. I could really use a hug right now, so here goes.

Some women dream of the perfect man. He listens without interrupting. He wraps his arms around your shoulder while you sob at Tasha Yar's demise during a "Star Trek" rerun. Does such a man really exist? Sort of. Your dreamboat may be the $34.95 Boyfriend Pillow.

The pillow is half of a headless torso with one arm reaching out from the body. I know that sounds like a description from "The Walking Dead." It wears a blue shirt and won't judge you for watching chick flicks or "Prometheus."… Read more

Normally I try to provide thoughtful commentary in the Common Sense Tech column, with solutions to problems that I raise when I can find them. But indulge me in rant. Because, once again, I've had it with printers.

I hate printers. They never seem to work. I don't care the model. I don't care the operating system talking to them. I don't care if it's printing through wireless or USB. Printers don't work.

I print far less than I ever used to, but the odd occasion still comes up requiring it. Often it's that there's some form that requires an actual physical signature be written on it, because some bank, government agency, or other bureaucracy is still operating in the paper age.

With a sigh, I push print and hope that the form actually comes out of the printer. Sometimes it does, which leaves me in dread of the next step -- will I be able to scan it with my signature, in order to e-mail it back. Or worse, can I get the fax to work, if that's the only way to send it? Where's my phone cord again?… Read more

The Iron Throne from "Game of Thrones" and your toilet already have a lot in common. Many people have sat on them. They are both extremely important within their respective worlds.

You may not have waged an epic war over your toilet, but you can make it look like you did with an Iron Throne wall decal from Etsy seller PeelAndStickDecals. This means the next time you're praying to the porcelain goddess, you can pretend to be kneeling in front of the Iron Throne.… Read more

Tal Avitzur is obsessed with collecting what he calls "retro junk." The California artist spends hours sifting through scrapyards to find parts for the whimsical robots he dreams up.

At his Talbotics studio in Santa Barbara, Avitzur has created dozens of bots that are creepy, cute, alien, or just plain bizarre. Many are more than just ornamental -- they work as night lights, illuminating dark rooms with their otherworldly LED eyes.

Some of his "Talbots" feature unexpected parts like vacuum cleaner motor housings, dolls, winches, clutches, floor polishers, meat grinder blades, taxidermy animal eyes, and old boat fittings. … Read more

Every year, countless vacuums fall to the wayside after accumulated hair clogs the rapidly spinning brushes at the base of the appliance and tangles up within its attachments. My significant other and her copious amounts of long hair can spell out at least five minutes of tediously cutting away tangles from the brush after a floor sweep.

Dyson recently unveiled a new attachment -- labeled the "Tangle-free Turbine tool" -- for its expensive line of vacuums that promises to reduce hair entanglements that occur while cleaning. Instead of a horizontal spinning brush, Dyson's $69 accessory uses a vertical axis of movement. The device features two flexible counter-rotating heads with built-in brushes that actually send hair past the spinners and into the vacuum bin. … Read more

The makers of the Boxee Box set-top box appear close to releasing its successor in the coming months, and it could offer support for over-the-air live television, as well as DVR support and the usual cast and crew of Web apps.

Sadly, those looking for the next great aesthetic breakthrough from the company might find the leaked device a bit uninspiring. Photos supplied from The Verge indicate that the Boxee TV might shed its predecessor's cube-like design for a more conventional rectangular prism look with a matte black finish. … Read more

I admit it, I have a problem. I am a fan of fast networking products and often feel uneasy if what I have isn't the latest and greatest. That hasn't changed at all, despite the fact that over the years, I have realized that the latest and greatest is generally way more than I need.

The truth of the matter is, for most homes (and even certain types of small offices), all you need is a stable Wireless-N Wi-Fi router. This is because the main purpose of the router is often just to share the Internet connection and some network resources, such as printers and documents. Since the Internet speed generally caps at much lower amount than Wireless-N's speed, it won't get faster if you upgrade the router to the latest and greatest. On top of that, the majority of wireless hardware clients, such as tablets, smartphones, laptops, support Wireless-N (802.11n) or the slower Wireless-G (802.11g) standards. Since the speed of a network connection is determined by the slowest speed of any party involved, a lot of time having a superfast router doesn't help with the speed of the local LAN, either.

That said, if you just want a simple home network to share the Internet and data files, the following routers will more than get the job done. The best part is that none of them costs you more than $80.… Read more