The Smart Ball is a small plastic spherical robot that you can control with your Bluetooth-capable Android phone. The interface that you use to control the Smart Ball is the simplest possible; tilt your cell phone in the direction that you want the ball to roll, and there it goes.
(Smart Ball video)
The balls are actually prototypes for a real commercial product, and were made by hacker group Gearbox. The Gearbox folks have already opened up the APIs (the parts that let programmers create apps to control the balls) and have been running hack weekends where people can come along and try them out.
The Gearbox people are aiming for a price of around $25, and already have games planned or written.
SF fans (as well as fans of supermarionation) remember the early 1980's series The Terrahawks, which had spherical robots called Zeroids were used to fight the evil witch-like alien Zelda.
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