Worried about the rise of the robots? Sure we all are. But we never saw it coming from our trusty flashlights. Yes, they will transform and enslave us by being useful in the dark. Which is a brilliant plan. We will never see it coming when the light goes out and they finally attack.

This awesome flashlight can transform into three different forms: humanoid robot, scrambling spider and standing spider. That’s three cool things in one flashlight. Which is two more than your current flashlight does. All this coolness for only $20.

This Dalek Christmas tree is scary. Scary because it’s a Dalek and scary because it’s so silly and bizarre that my brain has no idea how to process it. It was created by Minnesotan Lindsey Testolin and features a lot of flashing lights, no sense of style or attitude, some bulb ornaments on the base, and I hope they have a spare laundry basket or he’s gonna lose his neck.

If Doctor Who was a DIY production, this would be an actual screen cap of the Christmas special. Regardless of it’s ragtag DIY look, it warms our cold geek hearts. Video below.

There’s still some time left to find cool robot gifts for Xmas. Behold The Botropolis 2008 Christmas gift guide, fresh from our robot site Botropolis. We have you covered.

Everything from robot ornaments, to talking Dalek alarm clocks, to robot kits you can build yourself, to T-shirts. Fear the one’s that scientists are building, but love the one’s that you can buy, that’s our motto. Hit the link for all kinds of robot gifts fit for any stocking.

Mamoru is a small elder-care robot created by the University of Tokyo that sort of resembles an old granny, complete with little plastic bun. It’s designed to help the elderly or disabled remember where they left their remote control or their slippers, and even offers polite reminders when it’s time to take their medicine. Mamoru recognizes objects by using a wide-angle camera to study the room. Image recognition software tells it what each object is, so it knows where everything is.

Why do we need creepy robots to look after our elderly? Do they not already fear one creature known as the Grim Reaper? Are we trying to creep them into the grave? No. No we are not. There are simply not enough caregivers compared to the number of those who need care. So, we must take our chances and hope that these robots do not torment them and start hiding the meds rather then helping to find them.

A few weeks ago, we took a look at some pretty awesome geek cakes. Although we don’t necessarily promote tooth decay or stomachaches, here’s 25 more. All great confectionery nerd works of art, each and every one. Click through for a visual sugar rush.

The dudes at the Mutoid Waste Company just need 3 more of these beasts, then they can roam the future wastelands as the Four Robo-dog-men of the Apocalypse, spreading fire and carnage wherever they ride and fulfilling prophecies.

For now they have one. These guys love them some scrap metal and Larry is their latest creation to crawl out of the gates of the workshop and onto the streets of London, breathing fire with each step forward. See the bot in action below.

Roomba owners should really shut their bots off before leaving their house and arming the alarm system. Here’s why. A Roomba in a Denmark home got all hopped up on dust and dirt and tripped the motion sensors. It was just jonesin’ to snort some debris while its owners were out on the town.

The alarm was tripped, and the authorities were automatically phoned. They arrived to see that the little bot had gorged itself in a shameless and lonely orgy of filth. Otherwise all was well.

Our favorite droid gets a gadget makeover yet again. When is he ever going to get some respect? If he isn’t pulling aquarium duty, he’s keeping your stuff cold. And when he isn’t acting as your own personal fridge, he’s a drink server.

Well, now someone’s taken a Lego R2 and made him into a USB drive. Which is neat and all, but he still ain’t gettin no respect. Because when you plug the little guy into your usb port, he just looks like he got shot out of a cannon and got stuck in your laptop and should be flailing his legs. Such is the life of an overly merchandised droid.

It’s about time HAL had feet, but it may not be the smartest thing to give this unbalanced bot that much mobility. Sure, he’s cute and made of paper, but make no mistake, he still would prefer humans dead. This time it won’t be by shutting off cryogenic chambers and watching humans drift off into space. This time, he’ll use cuteness to get you close and paper cuts to finish you off. If you choose to print and assemble this papercraft version, there will be blood.

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.”

In the video above, this gigantic ALCNON humanoid robot picks a fight with a miniature opponent, showing off a combination of his swift punches and dance moves. The little bot is pretty scrappy and comes at him again and again, sadly to no avail. It’s all pretty sad, yet strangely satisfying.

Despite ALCNON having a name that sounds like a substance abuse meeting, he’s presumably pretty adapt at picking on robots his own size, not that you’d know it from this video. He sports a creepy cyclops eye, and two pincers for hands. ALCNON was a big star at the recent ROBO-ONE robot battle in Japan.

We would all like to have our own robot. And hey, it’s a bonus if that robot doubles as a cool CNC router. We’ll here’s your opportunity to build your own six legged robot with an attached CNC router for a head. Check out this awesome demo video that shows off the robots mobility while it carves a super detailed 3d human face.

I think this solves the mystery of that huge face on Mars. Somewhere out there, some alien is controlling a gigantic robo-router for their own amusement. The awesome thing is that you can build your own version. The site is selling kits with everything you need. Soon you too can make detailed human heads of your very own.

This is a video of an iPhone robot, complete with springy tail. It’s a self-propelled iPhone robot that uses a small electrical engine and a Arduino board. It runs on 4 AA batteries and apparently prefers to dance to the sounds of Techo. It doesn’t clean or anything like that. It is what it is. And it seems quite content with that.

The Biopod automated tripod is a concept at the moment, so we don’t have to worry about Robo-Tripods following us around and selling pics to tabloids just yet. But one day soon that is exactly what will happen.

This little guy crawls about 3 inches off of the ground and can’t even grip walls to get it’s shot. So given it’s size and adherence to the ground, this thing will be stalking little people and snapping upskirt pics only. Until it hovers, that’s all it has career-wise. You gotta start somewhere. I suppose it could always catalog footwear and sidewalk pot-holes.

The rolling egg that fancies itself a robot is back, with an update in the form of the Rolly SEP-50BT. Compared to its predecessor the Rolly SEP-10BT, this new dancing fool has double the memory at 2GB along with Bluetooth. Which means that it can now be controlled from a cellphone, PC etc. It comes bundled with ‘Rolly Remote’, software that lets you control the movement of your Rolly. In fact you can control up to 7 Rolly’s from the PC. The new Rolly will be available in pink and limited edition black for about $350 on November 21 in Japan.