Spykee Robot Perfect for Your Robot Army

Are you building a robot army to take over the world and finding it frustrating that there just aren't enough types of robots to choose from?  Well, if this is you (and who isn't it these days?), your selection got a little wider with the Spykee spy robot from Meccano (watch out for their official website--it's a resource-hungry Flash-based monster).   When Meccano calls this a spy robot, they're not kidding.  

Once built (he comes as a kit), Spykee has a built in camera and microphone and can stream both audio and video over WiFi.  Since he can move around on his tractor treads this makes him a mobile sentry robot, not unlike WowWee's Rovio.  However, Spykee has a few things that makes him a bit more impressive than the three-wheeler from WowWee.  The first thing you notice is that Spykee is vaguely humanoid.  He's got those aforementioned treads to get around on rather than wheels but he's got arms and a head that turns, making him much more human-like than Rovio.
Beyond the shallow, surface differences, Spykee also manages to bring some impressive features inside his chassis, as well as out.
He's got Voice Over IP (VOIP) phone capabilities which allows you to use him to communicate with anyone in the room while you are anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.  He can stream music from your computer through his speakers allowing you to have a portable music player you don't even have to carry with you.
As a spy robot, he's capable of sensing motion, recording video and audio, and, as mentioned above, streaming both, too.  Another improvement over Rovio is that Spykee can sense when his battery is running low and will return to his charging station automatically.  Since he's got WiFi onboard, you can control Spykee from any computer (PC or Mac) on your local network or even from over the Internet.  
Of course, you shouldn't be expecting HD or even standard definition video--Spykee shoots 320x240 15 frames per second.  He's joystick compliant, which is nice and his software is open source, which means he's a great hobby 'bot, if, in fact, you are not planning on taking over the world with a robot uprising under your control.  
Spykee runs for £200 and is apparently only available in the UK.  Learn more at Gizoo.co.uk's product page for Spykee or head over to the unofficial Spykee site at Spykee.org.