Burns: “Gentlemen we can rebuild him. We can make him cuddlier in shades of white, blue and pink that should appeal to teen girls.”

Smithers: “Yes, these teen girls…Their parents have money. We’ll be giving them the exact same product. It’s just wearing a snuggly jacket”

Burns: “Damn if that’s not a perfect way of introducing ’something new’ during this economic crisis. Get on it right away”

Smithers: “One thing sir. How should we handle the marketing?”

Burns: “Let the blogs take care of that.”

Smithers: “Brilliant as always sir.”

Making it’s debut at the 2008 Good Design Expo,(That’s debatable) cellular provider Willcom’s Kuma Phone let’s you talk to a bears nuts while you apparently listen to the voice come out of it’s mouth. Just plain looks wrong and takes the human/bear relationship to places it should never go. It’s totally a real phone. Just one you wouldn’t want to use in public.

It has a SIM card inside just like a real cell phone, and even stores four speed dial numbers, accessed through paw-squeezes. Awww. It vibrates and makes noises when you have incoming calls. When you get a call, just answer by gripping the bear’s tail and end the call in the same way. The Kuma Phone hopes to see the light of day at $500 a unit. I’m not sure how I feel about it. On one hand we’re talking a $500 cuddly bear phone. Which is insane of course. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to deny any bear it’s obvious pleasure interacting with a lovely Asian girl.

In his attempt to build a better tribble thing, roboticist Steve Yohanan has come up with a Haptic creature that looks like a tribble with bunny ears attached. One that raises the creep factor, by having no facial features. This robot uses touch feedback as it’s only way to communicate.

It’s full of pressure sensors and the need to lull you into a false sense of safety with lots of fur and no face. It will be able to sense how you touch it or stroke it, and it will respond with breathing motions, ear wiggles or purring. What we have here is a fancy fur slipper that’s been sewn up after installing some gear. I just wish I worked for the company, because I’d find a huge bin full of these things and recreate the classic trek image above.