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This week on Crave, we're back from CES with a look at some of the wackier stuff we spotted at the show. Then, Canadian astronaut Christopher Hadfield gives us a highly important grooming lesson on the safest way to clip our nails in outer space, and the Hal 9000 computer replica from ThinkGeek refuses to cooperate. … Read more

ThinkGeek boasts that the HAL 9000 life-size replica is the "most movie-accurate HAL 9000 replica ever created." Let's hope it's only movie-accurate enough to be entertaining and not deadly.

If you're a fan of HAL 9000 and want to bring a little bit of that relentless robotic terror into your home, you can plunk down $500 for a sentient computer of your own (minus the actual sentience.) This HAL 9000 is better-behaved than the real thing. You still get the menacing red LED eye, but he won't try to kill you.… Read more

You're sweating in your bulky radiation suit, your dosimeter is freaking you out, and you're trying to close a valve that might just save a large portion of the population from some very nasty fallout.

Wouldn't it be nice to have some robotic help?

Japan's robot start-up Cyberdyne is modifying its Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) power suit for use by first responders in nuclear accidents.

The exoskeleton is being improved to help workers who have to wear heavy radiation protection clothing. Japan is still struggling with radiation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was severely damaged last year during one of the country's most powerful earthquakes. … Read more

If you tend to feel smothered in your romantic relationships, these photos of vacuum-sealed couples might leave you gasping for air.

Yes, you read that right. Vacuum-sealed couples. Because what says love like being shrink-wrapped to your significant other like a couple of old wool sweaters trying to keep the moths away?

First, let us reassure the claustrophobic romantics out there that this isn't a 2012 version of getting pinned. It's "Flesh Love," a Japanese artist's exploration of the intimate ties that bind (very tightly).

"I am currently seeking new dimensions in portrait photography by challenging the majestic theme of mankind, defined through love," the artist known as Photographer Hal writes on his Web site.

New dimensions, indeed. … Read more

On March 8 and 9, 2011, just days before the largest earthquake in its recorded history literally moved Japan 8 feet, the country played host to the inaugural International Forum on Cybernics 2011 in Tokyo.

While calling the event groundbreaking might qualify as crass, researchers showcased some truly innovative ideas in the world of cybernics, an emerging field that Japan's University of Tsukuba Cybernics department describes as the "fusion of human, machine and information systems." The word itself is a fusion of cybernetics, mechatronics, and informatics.

One of those ideas, the HAL-5 exoskeleton robotics suit by Tokyo-based company Cyberdyne, is a wearable device that helps ordinary people accomplish extraordinary feats, such as lifting objects they otherwise couldn't. (We covered an earlier iteration of this in 2009.) Think of the improvements possible for caregivers, people with missing or paralyzed limbs, the elderly who want to continue living independently, factory workers, etc.… Read more

Panasonic has created a robotic bed that can transform into a wheelchair, allowing the elderly or people with disabilities to get up without assistance.

Users can remain in the bed while it turns into a wheelchair. Half of the mattress rises and half lowers while a motorized unit beneath it automatically slides out from the bed.

While in chair mode, the robot can detect people and obstacles and help users avoid collisions, according to Panasonic.

A controller allows for driving and returning to the bed.

The mattress can also help people turn over in bed to prevent bedsores.

The bed'… Read more

Google's Hal Varian would likely have raised an eyebrow at a term paper submitted by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the search market.

Varian, currently on leave from the University of California at Berkeley to serve as Google's chief economist, thinks a lot of the arguments advanced by Microsoft in justifying its 10-year deal for Yahoo search are, in a word, "bogus." Microsoft has said that it needs "scale" to compete in the search market against Google, saying that larger amounts of traffic and data allow it to improve the quality of its search … Read more

This is about the closest thing to a Superman suit we've seen. Put it on, say its creators, and the motorized Hybrid Assistive Limb can "expand and improve physical capability" up to tenfold in activities such as walking, standing, and climbing stairs.

Through a sensor attached to the skin, "HAL" captures faint biosignals on the skin's surface that result from messages sent from the brain to muscles when a person attempts to move. A computer analyzes how much power the wearer intends to generate, then calculates the amount of torque needed to put limbs into action.

Especially noteworthy here is that the suit responds to intended motion, rather than actual motion.

"This is what we call a 'voluntary control system' that provides movement interpreting the wearer's intention from the biosignals in advance of the actual movement," explains Japan's Cyberdyne, which will soon begin manufacturing the cybernetic suits for about $4,200 apiece, possibly making it the first such wearable device aimed at civilians.

The company was formed by Sankai Yoshiyuki, a professor at the University of Tsukuba who is heading up research on HAL, which he says has the advantages of both robot and cyborg. Yoshiyuki says he was inspired by reading Isaac Asimov's "I Robot" as a child. … Read more

One of the least discussed topics in the world, or at least the world of online advertising, concerns where ads really run.

The case being brought against Google by Boston lawyer Hal K. Levitte, might expose far more than Google's alleged involvement in ads that the wrong people see, or, perhaps, that no one sees at all.

Mr. Levitte, depressingly, looks nothing like Boston Legal's William Shatner.

However, he makes the kind of arguments that Shatner's character, Denny Crane, has long foisted upon unsuspecting bit part actors on the show.

Mr. Levitte seems rather upset that he … Read more