Great news for parents everywhere! Now, instead of keeping an eye on your kids, you can go to work and leave the little crimb crunchers in the care of a robot disguised as a teddy bear.

I think the most interesting line in the story is the last line in the first paragraph: "allowing a parent talk to the child through a special phone, or monitor the child via a camera and wireless Internet connection." Obviously, this means the parent isn't at home. How long will it be before your little domesticated yard ape will figure out that all he or she has to do is just go to another room to get away from your spying eyes? Or will your little curtain climber ask teddy for a cookie, you say, "No. It'll spoil your dinner," and he or she pouts out of the room and straight to the cookie jar? Or will the little monster quicly learn the three finger salute to keep rebooting the bear?

"The vision behind this is to be two places at once," said Steven Bathiche, a research and development program manager with Redmond-based Microsoft. I wonder if that isn't a gift from Sir William of Redmond to his minions. "No more maternity/paternity leave! Get back to work, and watch your kids from your cubicle!" It reminds me of those commercials where a business big wig thanks Americans for working extra hours, forsaking vacation, and taking one for the team, rather than living their lives.