A professor of music technology at Georgia Tech, Gil Weinberg enlisted the support of graduate student Scott Driscoll to create Haile--the first truly robotic musician. Not only does it identify and imitate music, but Haile (pronounced Hi-lee) can maintain rhythm and distinguish between similar rhythms. Here is a video of Haile in action.

Adam Pasick is heading up Reuters technology's first virtual news bureau inside the online role-playing game Second Life. While many independent journalists and bloggers have published inside such virtual worlds, Reuters is the first established news agency to dispatch a full-time reporter to do so.

A new software developed by Image Metrics allows a computer to map an actor's performance onto any character virtual or human, living or dead. The computer mirror image posses something more subtle than just mimicking ones facial expressions. It is as if it adopts the actors personality.

Some die-hards at Sony still believe that, properly designed, the e-book has a future. Their solution is the Sony Reader, a small, sleek, portable screen that will be introduced this month in some malls, at Borders bookstores and at sonystyle.com for $350.