This article was taken from the November 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

The Furby may have returned to toy shops, but that gibbering robo-hamster can't touch the DragonBot. This furry robot is powered entirely by an Android phone: snap yours in and it becomes an animated virtual face, capable of responding to human emotions and conversations. The phone provides sensory input (camera and microphone) and controls the actuation of the robot (motors and speakers). "Video from the camera is sent into the cloud," says Adam Setapen, project leader. "Then DragonBot asks questions about the data he sent. He doesn't store any information locally, except what type of character he is."

Earlier this year, Setapen, part of the Personal Robots group at the Media Lab, released five bots into the wild for four- to seven-year-olds to interact with. "I'm not interested in robots in the lab, I'm interested in robots outside the lab," he says. "I built this robot to be out in the world - a real-world robot. It can run for about seven hours on batteries and it always has an internet connection. It's capable of being out there, but robots are still not smart enough to be out in the real world every day. I can use all that data [from the trial] to make the robots even better."

Setapen thinks that the DragonBot will one day be "a toy for kids to learn more about robotics by programming it themselves" and cost around £200. Who knew the robot uprising would be so cute?