For us pet owners, one of the worst parts of the day is leaving our furry friends behind so we can go to work. Worse still, some pets don't handle being alone all that well, and take to destroying items around the house. While some cats may just let themselves out, not all other animals are content with sleeping in the house, so it's time to give your faithful companion a friend of its own.

DarwinBot is an experiment by Jordan Correa, a test developer at Microsoft's Robotics Group. He was looking for a way to test out the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 development tool, and decided to try out the most recent updates on his dog, Darwin, who needed some comfort and distraction while his owners were out. The robot allows Jordan to remotely interact with Darwin over the Internet.

An ordinary, garden-variety moth.I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the US Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a pack of completely insane scientists and engineers bent on nothing less than, well, everything. This time around, they’ve managed to insert a neural probe tied to a wireless stimulator onto a moth’s ventral nerve cord, according to a report over at New Scientist.

You can be sure that trying to engineer insects as spies is not something that’s new. It’s been in the realm of science fiction for years, appearing in tons of movies and novels about the future of spy technology. The question, though, is if the reality of it is more cool or concerning. Cyborgs in general are pretty cool, I’m fan of the merging of man and machine, Blade Runner-style. Who isn’t, right?

[Photo: AORA]Each year, green fuels and energy grow more popular as the technology becomes more efficient and less expensive. Just earlier this week, AORA unveiled a new CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) system in southern Spain.

It’s made up of a sun-ray collection tower that stands 35 meters (a little over a hundred feet) tall surrounded by about 50 mirrors (called heliostats) that are in position to focus sunlight to the “tulip” shape at the top of the spire. The tulip has a turbine inside it, and it can generate up to 100kW of power as well as 170kW of thermal power. That’s enough power to push about 50 homes in Europe, and perhaps a bit fewer in the more energy-hungry United States.

Lego and androids, together at last. Here at GeekTech we love Lego kits. I mean we really, really love lego projects. But this new project may be the best one yet. Max Shepherd has made a working, full-scale human hand using some Lego bricks, a few pneumatic tubes, and some know-how.

Max's robotic Lego creation mimics the full range of motion of a human hand. The whole contraption runs off of a jury-rigged cluster of switches and joysticks at the moment. Unlike many similar projects, Max doesn't use Lego’s NXT robotics system to program in the motions; Instead, his Lego hand uses a complex system of pneumatics to get the job done.

[Photo: Guggenheim Store]Eco-conscious parents rejoice: There is now an environmentally friendly alternative to those classic Lego blocks. The new Earth Blocks are made from recycled materials blended with just a wee bit of polypropylene to give them the necessary rigidity.

They currently come in three varieties based on the main recycled component--coffee beans, cedar tree bark or compressed dust from sawn cedar logs--each of which gives the block a slightly different earthy hue. A fourth block, made from green tea leaves, is rumored to be in the works, hopefully extending the color palette into the greens.

[Photo: FTIC]Some of the biggest uncanny valley problems we have with making 3D-models (i.e. video games and CGI movies) involve fine detail and making moving characters not look like marionette dolls. In most cases, animators have to create extremely detailed models and apply them on top of a 3D-dot frame taken from motion capture.

Filmmaker Jonathan Minard and artist/programmer James George have created a new imaging system, called “virtual cinematography,” that manages to do both at the same time using a stock Kinect and SLR camera. The duo used the SLR camera to capture a high-definition image of Carnegie Melon University's Golan Levin, and grafted his face onto the Kinect’s depth model.

[Photo: The Ratchet and Cog]When you're planning to hit up the clubs or attend a party, you want to make sure you are looking your absolute best. As a geek, there are many ways to make an impression beyond the usual apparel--and we're not just talking about a bringing along portable LED dance floor either.

Female geeks, here's a pair of shoes you'll never regret buying: vintage Steampunk LED Heels. When sat amongst your shoe collection, these wedge heels will just look like a pair of nice lace shoes. However, once you get to your party destination, switch them on and you will become the light show of the dance floor.

Ah, geeks. They're always trying to out-do each other by proposing in silly ways, filming said marriage proposals, and then posting them on YouTube in hopes of getting Internet-famous.

This is perhaps the geekiest marriage proposal yet. This dude didn't just propose like a normal geek--with Internet memes, or to a video game character--no, he went all out. YouTube user doctorpappa made a video of himself wearing a Futurama Bender mask (for those of you in the dark, Bender is an animated robot) and speaking in binary.

The iPhone 4S is one of the slickest devices out there, with its jet-black glass-on-metal look. But we love a good retro throwback--like these old school Apple design iPhone cases by Schreer Delights.

The line of cases replicates the look and feel of Apple’s designs for the original Macintosh, iPod, and a few Macs from Apple’s PowerPC days. Anyways, strap yourself into the nostalgia train while we take a look back at Apple before it was cool.

[Photo: Bristol Robotics Laboratory]A quick click through GeekTech's story archive will suggest just how realistic (and sometimes freaky) robotic technology has become. Robots can now beat us at all our favorite pastimes, carry heavy objects for days, wash hair...you name it, robots can probably do it. Now, researchers are working on a robot that not only eats biofuel and drinks dirty water, but can also excrete the waste.

EcoBot III, also known as BreadBot, is a self-sustaining robot created by the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK. It is not only capable of being charged by "food" such as leaves, dirt and, well, feces, but it can also go "poop" in a litter tray like a cat. Its predecessors, EcoBot I and II, would "eat" similar items, but they were unable to release the unwanted by-products.

More than anything, the ambition of the military's top scientists has to be admired. From advanced remote-controlled robots to sonic cannons to laser beams, weaponized combat is starting to look less like Call of Duty and more like the Halo franchise. Now, the U.S. Navy is taking a bold step into the explosive future with electricity, or more specifically, massive electromagnetic railguns.

Wired UK and Gizmag bring news that BAE Systems' multi-year EM railgun project is finally in more advanced testing stages, with a brand-new prototype that can fire a payload more than eight times faster than the speed of sound. For context, Wired UK tells it to us in impressive-yet-frightening numerical detail.

[Photo: CelebrationGeneration]Math--it's what's for dinner! Sort of. At least you can serve up some tasty dishes--and make your kitchen a hit with all of your DIY- and math-geek friends--with this custom pi tile backsplash. As an added bonus, it will provide you with the opportunity to make endless pi/pie puns and jokes. It's also relatively simple to do, if you follow the online tutorial.

To achieve this, you'll need 2-inch-by-2-inch square tiles, so this won't exactly be rocket science (no, it'll be pi! Yuk yuk). Basically, get tiles in two colors so that you can create a contrast or checkerboard design, then begin to arrange them as though they were pixels or Tetris squares or digits of pi to create a design.