TIME has published their annual list of the year’s top 50 inventions (topped by the iPad), and a number of robots managed to squeeze their way into unexpected categories.  Two exoskeletons appear in the Health and Medicine (Berkeley Bionics’ eLegs) and Military subsections (Raytheon Sarcos’ XOS-2).  Google’s autonomous car appears in the Transportation section.

Then there’s the actual robotics section, which includes Georgia Tech’s deceptive robots, KIST’s english-teaching robotic head FR-i, EMILY the robotic lifeguard, and a sarcasm detection algorithm.  Astute readers of Plastic Pals will know that FR-i was first introduced in 2009, not 2010.  Meanwhile, the list inexplicably excludes AIST’s recently unveiled HRP-4, the software used to make the HRP-4C sing and dance, ATR and Kokoro Co. Ltd.’s latest and most realistic female android (the Geminoid / Actroid-F), and the many new capabilities performed by Willow Garage’s PR2.

[source: TIME.com]