Fake Robot Baby Provokes Real Screams

Uncanny valley, heard of it? No worries, you're knee-deep in it right now. It's the revulsion you feel to robots, prostheses, or zombies that try, but don't quite duplicate their human models. As the robot becomes more humanlike, however, our emotional response becomes increasingly positive and empathetic. Unfortunately, the goal of Osaka University's AFFETTO was to create a robot modeled after a young child that could produce realistic facial expressions in order to endear it to a human caregiver in a more natural way. Impressive, sure, but we're not ready to let it suckle from our teat just yet.

AOL buys Huffington Post

They say when AOL buys your business it has peaked. It is all down hill from then on. Today, AOL announced it will pay $315 million cash to acquire The Huffington Post, the news site co-founded in 2005 by Arianna Huffington and media executive Kenneth Lerer.
The acquisition “will create a next-generation American media company with global reach,” said AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong.
AOL founder Steve Case tweeted about the Huffington Post deal, saying: “Tim Armstrong says “1 + 1 will equal 11″…Really? That wasn’t my experience.”

“This is truly a merger of visions and a perfect fit for us,” said Arianna Huffington. “The Huffington Post will continue on the same path we have been on for the last six years – though now at light speed – by combining with AOL.”

Huffington will be named President and Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post Media Group a division of AOL.

AOL said the new group will have 117 million unique visitors a month in the U.S., 270 million globally.

Best Songs of 2010

Once upon a time, we might have gauged the best "singles" of the year just ending, but popular music circa 2010 has shifted the conversation back to the fundamental – the song. The rules have changed with the proliferation of a la carte options for curious listeners: Conventional singles are multiplied by remixes, EP samplers, demos and alternate versions, giving MSN's contributors a vastly larger bucket of tunes to contemplate. Our top-ranked songs do include some well-known hits heard on radio or seen in videos, but our contributors' submissions tell a more tangled tale of fave musical moments.