Well, it’s Friday and you know what that means. It’s time to take a look at some of the things we covered over at Botropolis this week. Whether we like it or not, robots are here to stay. Our job is simply to document the coming apocalypse for future generations. If there are any. So lets take a look at what happened this week.

3 Tenors of Terror: Creepy bots sing Happy Birthday.

i-SOBOT pimps his ride: Gets a new Steam Tank.

AIMEC:3: Karaoke singing bot.

Robot Mythbusters?: Sure looks like it.

This one looks pretty useful for those of you who travel a lot, combining two items in one. The USB 4-Port Hub with Retractable Mouse Pad. As the name implies, it has a built in retractable mouse pad and a 4 port USB 2.0 hub.

It’s compatible with Windows, mac OS and Linux and measures 246 x 280 x 26mm. Some other specs include: USB 2.0 4-Port Hub, Fully compliant with USB 2.0 specifications, Backwards compatible with USB 1.1, and Built-in Blue LED backlight.

Chances are you’ve got more USB toys than you have ports. So when it comes to a USB hub, an octopus makes perfect sense. Octopi have eight arms. That’s an awesome amount of gadgets to be able to plug into it. But wait.

This is no Octopus. It only has four arms, giving you four USB ports, not eight. What gives? This is only half an octopus. More of a quadropus really. With googly eyes. At least the tentacles are long.

Jen Hui Liao’s self-portrait machine will snap a picture of you. After that you are more or less handcuffed to a drawing board as it forces you to sketch your own likeness. So a robot is enslaving you for once. Just for a little while.

Jen Hui Liao is exploring the fact that “our personal identities are represented by the products of the man-machine relationship.” Whatever. I just picture all future robots forcing us to do art for their walls, while we hang in the closet between masterpieces being fed intravenously.

A federal judge in Los Angeles overturned a guilty verdict on Thursday against Lori Drew, a participant in a cyberbullying hoax against a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide.

According to U.S. District Judge George Wu, the federal case against Drew revolved around the idea that violating the terms of service for MySpace was the equivalent of computer hacking, which “…leaves it up to a website owner to determine what is a crime”. Wu threw out the case against Drew of three misdemeanor accounts of accessing computers without authorization, despite a conviction by the jury. A guilty ruling in the case could have potentially made a criminal of anyone that enters false information when registering on any website.

Lori Drew, 50, was accused of participating in a MySpace …

Amidst rumors of overheating iPhones since shortly after the iPhone 3GS was launched, Apple has finally released the first acknowledgment that there might really be an issue with the iPhone regarding excessive temperatures. Various sites on the internet have posted reports of problems with the iPhone due to excessive heat such as shortened battery life, shut downs and even discoloration of the device itself. Now Apple has officially issued a warning about operating and storing the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS in places with too much heat.

Apple suggests to only operate the iPhone 3G and 3GS in temperatures between 32º to 95º F (0º and 35º C) and to only store the device between temps of -4º to 113º F (-20º and 45º C). Using or storing the iPhone in temperatures beyond this range can cause the device to stop charging (which could explain a shortened battery life), a dimmer display or a weak signal.

The Erase-o-Matic degausser will not slice and it will not dice. What it does is erase magnetic data media such as diskettes, cassettes, VHS, zip drives etc, using rare earth magnets enclosed in a special case. There’s a larger version for larger media and hard drives.

It must be the “As seen on TV” type name that has the base version priced at $395.00. For tapes just pass them through once then rotate 180 degrees and pass them through again. A hard drive should be passed once, then rotated 180 degrees and passed again, then pass it again from the other end, rotate 180 degrees and pass again.

Looks like Toshiba is serious about the HDD and DVD recorder market in Japan. They’ve just released the 1TB Regza RD-E1004K and the 320GB Regza RD-304K.

Both HDD and DVD recorders can record HD video in Blu-ray format or in a standard format (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264). The 1TB RD-E1004K retails for 65,000 Yen (or $677). No word on pricing for the 320GB model.

We first showed you the Beanzawave USB microwave last month. Well here’s the first hands on video of the Beanzawave in action. Sure,when it comes to power and size it’s lacking, but it makes up for those cons with portability and convenience.

It’s powered by onboard batteries that can be charged via USB or an AC adapter. Of course, it’s designed to work with Heinz’s very own single-serving cans of Chef Boyardee foods. We still don’t have any details on pricing or availability.

Here’s a crazy concept that celebrities are sure to love. It’s basically an LED flash built-into a clutch purse. When it senses a flash it will send out an even brighter flash to blind the camera. And probably the cameraman too. It prevents the picture from coming out right.

The result is a bright halo around the subject with no facial features identifiable. I’d be real surprised if celebs don’t get this thing mass produced. First the bugs need to be worked out as it hasn’t been perfected yet.

Soon Dell Netbooks, specifically the Dell Mini 10, will be available with a $69 Wireless 700 Card which will make the netbook navigation capable, just like your smartphone. The Wi-Fi enabled card would let you navigate just like with other devices.

The Wireless 700 card uses a combination of Broadcom’s GPS technology and Skyhook Wireless’ Wi-Fi positioning solutions. The integrated navigation software will provide 2D and 3D map viewing and will help save addresses for trip and route optimization. Users could also geo-tag photos to flickr and get weather updates for a specific location.

You’ve experienced Flashdance. You were enthralled by Riverdance. You were captivated by dancing with the stars. Now experience the latest dance sensation. The dancefloor: Your alarm clock. The dancers: Your fingers.

It’s time to dress up your digits and have your friends judge the dance routines as you take your clock by storm with the Finger Dance Alarm Clock. This clock will keep ringing unless your fingers are able to hit the correct sequence as depicted by the lights.

Here’s a clone with an identity crisis. We think it’s supposed to be the HTC G2 aka HTC Magic. And as you might expect, for your $102 you’ll get run-of-the-mill specs, though it does feature dual SIM card slots if that’s what you’re after.

Some other specs include an integrated TV tuner and FM radio support alongside a 2.6″ touchscreen display at 240 × 320 resolution. Who wants one?

We first told you about this one back in May. Samsung has finally rolled out the odd SCH-W760 cellphone in South Korea. It’s the first handset in the world to come with an infrared camera. Very handy if you want to do video calls in low-light situations like a strip-club, or while hunting for Bigfoot in the wild.

It also has a 3-megapixel camera and 2.8″ AMOLED display with 240 x 400 resolution. Some other features of the SCH-W760 include 8GB of internal memory, a microSD memory card slot, S-DMB TV support and high speed 3G connectivity.

NXZT’s Sentry 2 Touchscreen Fan Controller looks like it belongs in the dashboard of your spaceship. No buttons here. It’s all touchscreen interaction. If you have a spare 5.25″ drive bay, you’ll want to put this in it.

The Sentry 2 lets you control up to 5 fans with the option for manually tuning individual fan speeds or letting the automatic controls take over to correspond to a specific temperature. An alarm will sound to alert the user if the temperature exceeds the preset amount and stores saved settings even after it is turned off.