For five years now the ill and elderly in Japan and Europe have had adorable, furry, sensor-ridden robotic seals to speed recover and improve health. Two months ago PAROs arrived stateside and are gaining traction in nursing homes and hospitals across the country. At $6,000 a pop, they're not cheap, but they also don't smell, bite, require training, or cough up an unexpected hairball. Similar to that other four-letter robot, PARO has sensors that track everything from touch to light to posture and learns from human interaction. Stroke the thing and it remembers what action caused the positive feedback. Smack it, and it won't repeat the "bad" behavior which preceded the beatdown.

Why seals? "People don't have many interactions with them," explained a PARO robots spokesperson. "They won't be let down by any preconceptions they might have."

See the cutie in action, after the jump.

Living in a New York apartment, I barely have room for two stereo speakers – let alone 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 surround-sound rigs. So I may not be the ideal person for Dolby’s new Dolby Prologic IIz setup, which features up to 10 speakers, with two up in the air.

Just a year ago, Casio introduced its first high-speed camera, the Best of What’s New-winning EX-F1. The size of a small SLR, that camera captures up to 60 full-res photos per second. The rate is cut to 30 per second in Casio’s two newest high-speed models, but the size is also cut as low as 0.64 inches thick for the model EX-FS10 (and just an inch for the companion EX-FC100). They also capture high-speed video at up to 1000 fps at low resolution, or up to 720p high-def at a standard 30fps.

Just as production of Polaroid's beloved instant film grinds to a halt, the company is announcing the anticipated digital version of the original "instant camera". Debuting in spring 2009 for $199.99, the PoGo Instant Digital Camera combines Polaroid's 2008 breakthrough pocket printer with a digital camera.

The earliest photos in my family albums are all old-school Polaroid, and I have fond memories of watching images of birthday parties and impromptu portraits emerge on the film. So my first thought about the PoGo was: can a digital camera possibly capture this mysterious magic?

OQO has been pushing the bounds of what you can fit into your palm for a few years. Long before netbooks were even a twinkle in Intel's eye, the company was making tiny, full-service computers. But with the explosion of said netbooks, plus ever-smarter smartphones, is there still a place for this Lilliputian, high-power, high-priced computer? Hard to say, but the company isn't just sitting back to see what happens.

We at PopSci love Sonos, the wireless music streaming system that has won two Best of What’s New awards over the years. And since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the Linksys division of Cisco seems to love Sonos too. They’ve come out with their own version of the product--with a few features that may be better.

Two days before the Consumer Electronics Show officially starts, the first products debuted at CES Unveiled on Tuesday evening. Many of the tables at the Venetian conference center in Vegas looked best-suited to an obscure trade fair, with information about USB and HDMI specifications, for example. But a few innovative--or just plain quirky -- products emerged. Click to see the highlights.

At long last -- and after we jealously watched Sharp's debut in Japan last year -- wireless high-def TVs have come to the States. LG's 55-inch LHX LCD television features a separate "media box" that sources like cable boxes and Blu-ray players plug into. (Other products from Sony and Geffen are add-on units.) The box beams digital video and audio to the one-inch-thick TV using 60-gigahertz technology from SiBeam called WirelessHD.

Details are still fuzzy, but with very little fanfare it appears the world's first cell phone with a built-in projector has arrived. A company called Logic Wireless is claiming a CES debut of The Logic Bolt (in partnership with T-Mobile, no less). The phone has "razor-sharp" projections which can grow its screen size by 3000 percent and still retains a remarkably slim footprint, if the photos are any indication.

Hewlett-Packard’s Firebird looks like any high-powered desktop computer. But it whispers at less than 30 decibels, while rivals are twice as loud. It gets its muscle from a high-power desktop CPU with four processors, but laptop-style components, including three graphics cards and a pair of hard drives, keep the Firebird cool, quiet and efficient.

1. Video on Demand

Jackpot: We pick winning gadgets from the year's biggest tech convention.  Courtesy Jeff Kubina; Lettering PopSci

Keep your browser pointed to popsci.com/ces2009 for up-to-the-minute coverage of the gadgets, tech trends and announcements you'll be talking about for the rest of the year.

Last night, the Consumer Electronics Association kicked off the digital holiday season with the CES Preview in Manhattan. At first glance, it appeared to be one of the most depressing product shows I've ever been to.