This week the 2007 International Robot Exhibition hit Japan unleashing a wave of shiny new robots on humanity. But there's one robot making the rounds at the event meant to serve man rather than replace him called the SmartPal V.

The robot can distinguish its owner's voice from within a crowd of other humans talking, can be programmed to recognize and take special care of items deemed important to its owner and can recognize and communicate with other SmartPal V robots. Although this is just a conference prototype, we suggest future versions do away with the robot-to-robot communication feature lest humanity fall victim to its first robot worker rights strike around the year 2020.

Via Yaskawa