Nearly one million robots are chugging away around the world right now, doing work that is normally referred to, in robot circles, as “the three Ds”–too dull, dirty, or dangerous to appeal to humans. But anticipating the day these machines take on white collar tasks, the great thinkers of the robotic world are cogitating a lot right now about kansei. It’s a Japanese term that describes a group of perceptions and faculties currently beyond the reach of machines, such as intuition, pleasure and pain, curiosity, emotion, sensitivity, attachment, and creativity.

If robots are to gain widespread acceptance in the workplace, then they too must acquire at least the appearance of kansei, says Shuji Hashimoto, director of the Humanoid Robotics Institute at Waseda University in Tokyo. Otherwise, we humans, fed on a steady diet of evil robot movies, will shun the blinking, bleeping machine in the next cubicle — or even turn it off.

Sony said it has succeeded in creating a battery that produces electricity by breaking down sugar. The bio cell, which measures 39 millimeters cubed, delivers 50mW (milliWatts)–a world record for such a cell, according to the company.

A video provided by Sony shows four of the cells connected in series delivering enough energy to power a Walkman music player. The battery uses glucose solution as a fuel. A second video shows a small fan being powered by the cell with a glucose-based sports drink used as the fuel. As in other cells, power is produced through a flow of electrons between a cathode and anode.

Sony plans to sell a satellite navigation accessory that turns its handheld PSP games console into a navigation device, the company announced at the Leipzig Games Convention. The PSP equipped with the global positioning accessory will compete with dedicated navigation devices such as those made by TomTom and Garmin.

David Reeves, head of Sony’s European games unit, said the accessory would be priced between 100 and 150 euros ($135-$200).

A man pleaded not guilty to running over and killing his 12-year-old baby sitter in a crime that police say was tracked by a global positioning system his suspicious wife had installed. George Ford Jr., 42, was charged last week with second-degree murder. He was originally charged with reckless endangerment, but police used the GPS data to file the more serious charges.

Ford told police he was taking Shyanne Somers home the night of July 8, took a detour to show her some horses and accidentally ran her over as he turned his truck around. Chenango County Sheriff Thomas Loughren has said Ford’s route was recorded on a GPS that his wife had installed a few days earlier because she suspected him of having an affair.

Mobile phone use is continuing to reduce the amount of time people spend using landlines, according to a report by the UK communications watchdog. For the first time, calls from mobiles now account for more than a third of time spent on phone calls, Ofcom said.

Mobile phone call minutes totalled 82 billion last year, in an overall total of 234 billion. And 9% of UK households rely solely on mobile phones, compared with 7% that only have a landline, the report added.

Toshiba revealed that it will soon add three new high-density flash memory cards to its product lineup–including one it touts as the world’s first 32GB flash card.

The Tokyo-based company, which partners with SanDisk to produce SanDisk High Capacity cards, also announced a 16GB SDHC card and an 8GB microSDHC card.

All the new cards meet the Class 4 specification in the SD Speed Class (a minimum of 4GB per second of throughput), which enable them to deliver enough power to run new-generation mobile phones and other handheld products.

Evolving the Treo family to keep mobile professionals connected, productive, and entertained, Palm Canada and TELUS announced the exclusive availability of the Palm Treo 755p smartphone in Canada. The CDMA Treo 755p offers TELUS Mobile Email, providing consumer and business clients with automatic updates to their email, calendar, contacts and task information; Google Maps for mobile; as well as the latest Treo design with integrated antenna, slimmer form factor and mini-SD slot.

The Treo 755p brings customers quick, wireless access to Web, email, business and multimedia applications, so consumers and professionals can stay connected while on the go.

NoiseBuster is running a special bundle offer on the NoiseBuster Active Noise Reduction (ANR) safety earmuff. If you buy one at $149, you can get the NoiseBuster ANR Audio Headphone for only $29–60% off the regular price of $69.

The NoiseBuster Active Noise Reduction Safety Earmuff is an important hearing protection product for industrial workers as well as for do-it-yourself users of lawnmowers, leaf blowers and power tools. Unlike traditional passive-only earmuffs and earplugs, the NoiseBuster provides more complete protection from a wider range of noise frequencies, particularly the low frequency noise generated by engines, motors and fans that is prevalent in many industrial settings. The passive component of the NoiseBuster ANR Earmuff has a very competitive Noise Reduction Rating of 26dB and the ANR component provides as much as 20dB of added noise reduction within the low-frequency bandwidth of 20-800 Hz.

The NoiseBuster Audio Headphone is ideal for traveling–it cancels out airplane engine noise and allows for greater enjoyment of music or in-flight entertainment.

Snap makes your Palm OS handheld more efficient to use. It gives you one place to take notes while talking to someone, and then quickly turns those notes into appointments, contacts, tasks and more. A free trial of SplashNotes is included with the Snap installer, which puts the power of SplashNotes at your Snap-ping fingertips, with its own icon at the bottom of the toolbar.

Mobile phone maker Nokia said it would bring Microsoft’s Windows Live suite of Web services, like email and instant messaging, to many of its cell phones.

Microsoft, Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. are competing for valuable real estate on a handset’s main screen, so users can gain access to their online services without the extra step of going through the phone’s Web browser.

Microsoft’s services will integrate with Nokia’s existing programs allowing users to sync their Windows Live contacts list with the phone’s address book or send and receive Hotmail emails within Nokia’s messaging application.

Owners of Nokia’s multimedia phones will be able to download a suite of Windows Live services that include email, instant messenger, contacts list and a blogging and picture sharing site.