researchers at MIT are working on the development of a robot dog (based on the sony aibo) that watches what you eat and how much you exercise, and that motivates you to stay on track with your heath program. the wireless monitors your pedometer and food diary to keep you on your weight loss plan. if you eat ice cream, it looks sad and mopes around. but if you stay on track with calories and exercise, it wags its tail and jumps up and down in response to the question ‘how am I doing?’. the system is being designed by cynthia breazeal and cory kidd at the MIT media lab, who have also written a brief paper on the idea. via the vegetarian organic life