Many who own the Sony AIBO, a $2,000 robotic dog that has personality traits, and speech recognition, believe it to be better than a real dog. It doesn’t need to be fed, or go for a walk to do its business, or need to be cared for while traveling. But, last week, Sony announced that, after six years and sales of 150,000 units, it is killing the AIBO, in an effort to cut costs. The closure of Sony’s entire robotics unit is imminent.

Meanwhile, another robotic toy company is ramping up. It was announced today that the co-creator of the blockbuster toy Furby, toy inventor Caleb Chung, will be joining forces with former Lucas Film President, Gordon Radley, at Ugobe. Based in Emeryville, California, the startup is developing an allegedly revolutionary robotic toy that blurs the line between robot and real life form.

[Update: Ugobe officially launched today (2-6-06) at DEMO, and announced their first product, a baby dinosaur named Pleo. Pleo will cost $200 and be available Q306. Engadget has the details of this amazing lifelike creature.]

In other consumer robot news, Japanese beer company Asahi announced last week that it will be giving away 5,000 refrigerated robots. The robots can remove a beer from a refrigerated storage area, open the can, and pour it into a mug!

As a supplement to my suggestion to Gap that they offer a way for people to design their own apparel, I have discovered several companies that are offering customized product opportunities.

Two behemoths in the shoe industry, Nike and Reebok, have both recently launched sites that allow consumers to customize shoes. The Nike ID and RBK Custom websites allow you to choose a basic shoe type and select colors, patterns etc. Cool!

Snowboard product company Burton also allows consumers to design their own board. You can choose from almost any board in their current lineup, select from 13 graphic themes, and have a message printed on the base. Retail price: $900. [Thanks, Scott Kobayashi]

Another interesting company that’s gaining traction in the consumer designed product space is Zazzle.com. The Company is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and allows you to create your own stamps, t-shirts, and customize other products. According to Forbes, since the site began promoting itself in July, sales are up six-fold, and Zazzle expects to turn a profit on $20 million in revenue this year.

Creative product designers can also create and sell goods via Goodstorm.com, a company that ships the product, and collects the money for independent creators. What makes Goodstorm different from Zazzle.com is that they specifically target non-profits and donate a portion of its profits to charity.

Current genomic sequencing methods cost an estimated $20 million to map a human genome, but George Church and colleagues at Harvard Medical School have discovered a much more cost efficient method (approximately $2.2 million), which was reported in the scientific journal Science in August, 2005. The method leverages advances in digital photography technology to essentially photograph microscopic, color coded beads. Church says the cost could eventually be reduced further to about $1,000 per genome.

The implication of this innovation is that the possibility is within reach that you could get your genome sequenced at your doctor’s office, and have customized drug treatment and prevention solutions tailored to your unique genetic makeup. Personalized medicine company Perlegen Sciences Inc., which recently received a $50 million equity investment from its research partner, pharmaco Pfizer Inc., is one company researching the genetic component of disease and formulating differentiated treatment solutions.

[Thanks, CNN, Science, George Church, Venture Wire]

Guy Kawasaki, on his fantastic “Let the Good Times Roll” blog, announced awards to contributors of a “Film Loop” featuring his readers. I won the “most likely to be an MBA” award, and won a signed copy of Guy’s latest book, “The Art of the Start.” Thanks Guy!!

Film Loop, a portfolio company of Guy’s Garage Technology Ventures, is an innovative online digital photo application that allows people to share and comment (either to a private group or the public) on photos displayed via a streaming “ticker” style format.

For years, I have helped carry down boxes filled with Holiday decorations from the attic after Thanksgiving, and then hauled the boxes back up after New Year’s. It’s a dangerous job because maneuvering heavy boxes up and down a conventional fold-down attic ladder is awkward, and I often thought how great it would be if we had a lift.

Space Lift Products, a startup company that publicly launched last week at the International Builder’s Show in Orlando, Florida, has an innovative solution: an elevator lift system that’s attached to an integrated telescoping stairway.

Check out how it works!

Chinese government sponsored research institute Hefei Institutes of Physical Science is developing technology to generate clean energy from deuterium in seawater through nuclear fusion. One liter of sea water would potentially produce the energy equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline. A critical part to the project’s success is developing a device capable of withstanding temperatures as high as 100 million degrees Celcius. If the claims are verified by the scientific community, this technological breakthrough could be a tremendous step in reducing dependence on pollution generating coal and oil energy.

[via Drudge]

[UPDATE (11-4-06):  Chinese scientists made their first successful test of the thermonuclear fusion reactor.  Full Story available here.]

I was a little reluctant to write about this for obvious reasons, but several bathroom experience innovations are worth noting. We do, after all, spend a rather significant amount of time in the bathroom, over the course of our lives, and the experience should be more interesting than it is today.

First, why does toilet paper always have to be plain, boring white? Why not black toilet paper? Or, why not toilet paper that looks like a roll of 100 dollar bills? A European company, Renova, is introducing solid, black toilet paper in the United States, and my guess is that it’s only a matter of time before you can buy Charmin in a plethora of colors and patterns! [Thanks, Deidre Woollard]

Secondly, there’s a new movement to move beyond simply placing advertisements above public urinals, which makes eminent sense because an ad has 45 seconds in front of a captive audience! Innovation Solutions Oceana has developed an innovative advertisement solution that offers an interactive experience to urinal users: high definition, color graphics, which are printed in “disappearing ink,” are activated when the urinal is used. [Thanks, Ilya Vedrashko]

Finally, brilliant businessman Mark Cuban recently invested in Brondell, a startup company that makes technologically advanced toilet seats. The seat, which retails for $550, features a heated seat, a retractable, warm water spray nozzle to clean, and a warm air blower to dry. The San Francisco based company, founded by Dave Samuel and Scott Pinizzotto, recently forged distribution deals with Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond. [Thanks, Forbes]

The famous Hard Rock, and Planet Hollywood themed restaurants have perhaps lost their luster, but several innovative concepts are energizing the restaurant and bar businesses. Ice Bars (not a new concept, but so cool, I wanted to post), for example, which are maintained at a negative 5 degrees Celsius year-round, are a popular escape from the mundane. Everything inside is made of ice, including the stools, glasses, and tables! Upon entering, patrons are given a super warm, insulated jacket, which not only serves to keep you warm, but also to ensure that the ice furnishings don’t melt via body heat. The original Ice Bar, which opened five years ago, is located in Stockholm, Sweden, and is a venture of Absolut Vodka. Ice themed bars are also located in Milan, London and Aukland.

The world’s first underwater restaurant, Ithaa, which means ”pearl” in Maldivian, is located at the Hilton Maldives Resort. The restaurant cost $5 million to build, seats just 14 people, and is surrounded by a coral reef. The cuisine is Maldivian-Western. [Thanks, Josh Spear]

In Vegas, a town notorious for over-the-top themes, the Wynn Las Vegas nightclub, Tryst, opened on New Year’s Eve. The Club features a 90 foot waterfall that cascades into a lagoon. (If anybody has been there and has a picture, please email it to me, so I can post. Thanks!)

I think there’s a big opportunity for bars that feel like a tropical resort inside, especially in cold climates, during the winter, though I would go year-round. There would be realistic looking, plastic palm trees, colored Christmas lights (they’re festive anytime of the year), lounge chairs, thatch roof cabanas, a painted beach and ocean scene on the walls, a bright, blue sky ceiling, a golf driving range video game like they have on cruise ships, waitresses serving drinks in sassy bikinis, incredible Mai Tais and Margaritas, an occasional steel drum band, and lots of Jimmy Buffett!

A recent aerospace engineering graduate of UCSD is seeking an employer via an eBay auction, which is definitely an innovative approach to job hunting! He is seeking a job in the San Diego area at either an aerospace company, or a golf equipment manufacturing company (he’s an avid golfer). Starting bid: $46,725.75

[Thanks, Ilya Vedrashko]

The Gap is one of America’s great companies, and sales are declining, despite an innovation effort to rejuvenate the brand. I have consulted in strategy and consumer insights for Gap brand (Gap, Inc. also owns Old Navy and Banana Republic), so I have to be reasonably tempered about what I say, but I have some thoughts on Gap brand’s direction (based on publicly available information).

There was an interesting front page story in the WSJ last week about Gap and its huge initiative to renovate stores. Gap sent a whopping 20 employees around the world in search of inspiration for innovative retail concepts and although the new store design is a great improvement, chalk boards in the jeans area, friendly employees, darker floors, couches outside the dressing areas, higher quality display tables, and bold colors on the walls don’t “wow” me.

A part of Gap’s new, defining mission is to enable individuals to express their personal style. Building on this theme (William Morris and CAA, here’s an idea for you to sell to Gap) select celebrities could create their own product lines and Gap co-branded marketing campaigns, and sell their product in little boutiques within the store and online. Another idea: there could be a section on the Gap website, and computer terminals in stores, where customers can design their own t-shirts (ie pick out colors, images, text etc.) This type of democratization for creating individual style, which is facilitated by technology, is the future, and Gap should embrace it now!

Innovative store features and an “emotional” store environment will only go so far, of course. Obviously, the store’s product is number 1, and I’m not particularly in touch with the latest trends and styles, so I’m not going to talk about that. But, I can talk about its television advertising, which Gap relies heavily on to drive store traffic. The television ad spot is losing marketing power, as a result of ad skipping technology (I may be talking about innovative marketing strategies – Gap is experimenting with a viral website – watchmechange.com, for example), but Gap ads have been uninspired for years, and even hurtful to its brand image — with respect to men — and this is going to take time to change.

When I consulted for Gap, there was much discussion about how to fix the declining men’s business. Meanwhile, Sarah Jessica Parker was all over television praising the color pink, and singing about how wonderful it is to be a girl! I know many guys that agree with me in thinking that this kind of advertising does not entice us to shop at Gap! The Gap’s “singing and dancing” ads have played way too long, and I’m truly thankful that Gap is allegedly starting to move away from that.

This picture of the remodeled Stanford Shopping Center store was taken a few days ago. The outside of a store is not as important as the inside store experience, but a vibrant outside can be a magnet for traffic.

Imagine if they had billboard type video image panels above the windows in those blank white spaces on the wall. This technology may still be relatively expensive, but I’m not talking about HD plasma quality video. The displays also don’t have to be used across the entire store fleet, but just top performing stores.