Geek Weekly: Our top weird tech stories for 4 December

Technology Decisions’ weekly wrap of IT fails, latest tech, new must-have gadgets, ‘computer says no’ moments and more.

Toshiba’s ‘lifelike’ robot. Toshiba has unveiled a supposedly ‘lifelike’ robot named Aiko Chihiro which can move its arms and legs (wow) and use Japanese sign language. The company says the “android is a prototype that the company will continue to develop towards achieving a service robot able to assist people in the fields of welfare and healthcare”. Lifelike? We think it looks a bit creepy, but see what you think:

First Sony … who’s next? The FBI has warned companies to be on guard against the same sort of attack that Sony suffered recently. A confidential report that the agency reportedly sent to an undisclosed number of businesses offered technical details of the methods “used in an attack on an unnamed victim”, thought to be Sony, with industry sources saying server infrastructure will be the next attack vector.

Clip art gets rubbed out. Microsoft has relegated its dated Office clip art to the recycle bin of history, replacing it with a search for images via Bing Images. In 1996, Word 6.0 had 82 in-built clip art illustrations, but that grew to more than 100,000. The new Bing process will find royalty-free Creative Commons images, art and animations.

Amazon’s automatic army. Amazon has deployed 15,000 robots to help it pick and move products in its warehouses in the lead-up to the Christmas shopping period. The clever robots manoeuvre under shelves, lift them up and take them to where they’re needed, following lines on the floor and choosing shelves according to their barcodes. Each robot can lift about 300 kilograms.