Two readers sent links to a BBC story about an industrial robot made by Fanuc that beat out walking humanoids and other advanced robots to win the 2007 Robot of the Year award in Japan. The Swirling Brain points out that NASA awarded their Invention of the Year award to Macro-Fiber Composite (PDF format), a sort of synthetic muscle material that may be used to create morphing structures and robots. He also sent a link to a recent story quoting Toyota as saying robots will be one of their core businesses soon. Roland Piquepaille let us know about his latest blog posts on commercial brain-to-computer interfaces, an update on the WHOI Autonomous Benthic Explorer AUV, the future of the US DoD's robot plans, the i-Snake medical robot, and robotic oil rigs. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please.