We’ve been led to believe that the first things robots will do when they gain sentience is rise up and enslave humanity. But what if it’s worse?

What if they become backseat drivers?

That’s the first thing that comes to mind when hearing about MIT’s Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA), developed with Volkswagen. AIDA is an in-car personal robot that will help drivers, sort of like an anthropomorphized smart GPS system.

AIDA will quickly learn its driver’s habits and usual routes (to work, to the store, for example) or when the car needs maintenance. Embedded in the dashboard, the robot is different from a GPS system in its humanized behaviors, giving affirmations such as winks and smiles – developing what its designers call a symbiotic relationship between the two.

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Location can be a lot of things: latitude and longitude, area, address, intersection, place… But it especially has a higher relevancy by being a context.

There are two primary location technologies: IP location and triangulation. IP location is widely available but it is only accurate to the city level. Concerning triangulation, GPS, which has the opposite characteristics of WiFi, doesn’t work indoors, but is accurate in rural areas. A cell tower, like 3G, works where there is cell coverage, in most areas, but is very inaccurate.

Using location improves the context for the user and can change your business. 2009 will be the year of location in the browser.

Google Latitude is a Google Earth app that lets you track your friends and family in real time, something which can equal nothing other than unmitigated F-U-N. It’s yet another GPS/Internet-of-Things tricks that has been getting more even more buzz than the usual Google release.

Besides questioning if it’s a little obsessive to track everyone you know on your phone or computer, some are pointing to Latitude’s potentially built-in dangers – and not just from your employers or drinking buddies.

A UK-based group is warning that Google Latitude can be used by unknown third parties to stalk individuals.

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Augmented reality (AR) is the superimposition of computer-generated data onto the physical world to add information and enhance perception. Currently it is media mediated, laying a strata of data over video images, and is promising to become a vital part of the mobile and gaming markets.

While augmented reality has thus far been specialized and theoretical, several AR devices have been recently been announced or released for the iPhone and Android, and it looks like mainstream adoption AR is around the corner (OK, it’s a long corner, but it’s still a corner).

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Instead of downloading ridiculously useless applications on your iPhone, like the famous lighter, here is below a preview of the list of the 10 iPhone Finance Apps That Count, published last week by Mint.com, the money management website that is taking off (see video presentation of Mint).

I would personally not use all of them - on the iPhone that I don’t have - but I would definitely pick the Bloomberg Mobile. And if HSBC had a Mobile Banking iPhone app where customers could find out where the nearest branch or ATM is located, and also check their available balances, I would definitely go for it and upload this second application… Anyway, take a look.

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Global positioning systems (GPS) may help Americans travel more efficiently, but purchasers should be aware that law enforcement officials are using them as tracking devices. The strategy of monitoring criminal suspects via GPS devices in their cars, cell phones, and boats is often executed without a warrant or court order, raising privacy concerns.

On the one hand, prosecutors have used GPS information to convict murderers and rapists, most commonly by discrediting a suspect’s alibi. On the other hand, not requiring a warrant may lead to arbitrary or capricious use of the power on innocent civilians. Renee Hutchins, law professor at the University of Maryland, argues that the current protocol restricts rights granted under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

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With the Alzheimer’s Association’s current estimates showing 10 million baby boomers will go through the degenerative disease, many are determined to fight back with brain fitness programs, CNN reported Wednesday.

Nintendo’s Brain Age is but one of a series of games and puzzles, such as crosswords and sudoku, meant to keep memory loss and signs of dementia at bay.

Chris Santos is not an old man. He began putting his brain through a series of mental exercises at 25. That was seven years ago, and Santos has since won the 2008 USA Memory Championship, proving he could learn 100 new names, faces and random words in 15 minutes as well as by memorizing the contents and order of a shuffled deck of cards in three.

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“There are many cool gadgets on the market that are so expensive, or so hard to find, most people will never have the enjoyment of owning them,”says Hubert Nguyen, Co-founder of Ubergizmo. “We intentionally chose gadgets you can actually go and buy without breaking the bank. And not only are these gadgets affordable – and perfect for holidays gifts – they are also the best of their kind.”

• The Apple iPhone 8GB
• The Sony Cybershot camera
• The NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT
• The Samsung SC-X300 Camcorder
• The Mio C320 GPS
• The Nintendo Wii
• The Seagate Freeagent 500GB
• The Ipod Nano Video 4GB
• The Harman Kardon SoundSticks II Speakers
• The Logitech XV Mouse

You will discover how to wirelessly upload photos directly from you camera to an online photo album, learn that Japan now has more than 6 million fiber-optic subscribers, and that the Japanese are switching in droves to 3G phones.

You will also discover the types of content Japanese cell users put on their phones, their mania for m-commerce, and a cutting-edge innovation that lets you map where you take your photos with a GPS device that connects to a digital camera or camcorder.

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On August 2, 2006, Sony (sony.com) announced the launch of a new product that enables its digital camcorders and cameras to plot the location where every image is taken. The external, stand-alone GPS device, called GPS-CS1, is a compact 87 x 36 x 36 mm (about 3.4 x 1.4 x 1.4 inches), weighs only 55 g (2 ounces), and is designed so its center of gravity will keep the GPS antenna pointed skyward whenever possible.

The device is easy to use: just have it on when shooting. It will automatically record the geographical coordinates along with a date and time stamp. Later, when you connect your camera to a computer to transfer your photos, simply connect the SPS-CS1 at the same time with the supplied USB cable.

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