What the world needs now, according to a Japanese research group, is a low-cost programmable robot. To spur more development of robots at the hobbyist level, Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology is promoting a humanoid creature named HRP-2m Choromet. One problem with current robots, AIST says, is that they tend to be little more than remote-controlled devices. Another is that getting beyond that evolutionary stage tends to take a lot of cash. Choromet, which bears a striking resemblance to the Transformers character Optimus Prime, comes with programmable software that runs on Linux.