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Remember "Weebo," the floating robot from Robin Williams' 1997 movie Flubber? A cute yellow bot that lived with Williams' absent-minded professor character, "she" was a loveable gadget that seemed far-fetched at the time. But fast-forward 17 years and Weebo is a whole lot closer to fact than fiction.

Meet Jr., a consumer robot in development that could soon be an extra set of eyes and ears in your house. Tempe, Ariz.-based startup Roambotics is currently beta-testing its first version in about 10 to 20 homes before it goes on sale next year. Jr. is a general-purpose robot equipped with cameras, microphones, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and autonomous navigation.

Jr. may resemble a Roomba, but it's a whole lot smarter: This next-gen robot really gets to know its user. Thanks to a behavioral user interface, Jr. acts sort of like a pet. It will start to learn your schedule and adjust how it behaves according to what it hears: For instance, if you sound busy because you're talking on the phone or watching TV, it'll stay out of your way. And Jr. is likely to serve as a pretty robust security system, since it pairs directly with your iOS device via an app — meaning you can peek in on your home from remote locations.

"It really is a first step toward a practical personal robot that you'd actually be able to have in your house and not just be a toy or a novelty," Roambotics CEO Scott Menor told OZY.

The current Jr. prototype operates on two wheels but can't go up stairs. Roambotics is refining how it moves around a home without crashing into walls or tripping humans. (The final version might also look a bit different than the prototype photos on this page.)

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Roambotics' approach to the personal robot is unique in how animal-like it is. In the same way that your golden retriever has a different personality from your neighbor's golden retriever, each Jr. adapts uniquely to its owner. So the more you interact with Jr., the more it'll reciprocate by trying to play games with you. And if you ignore it, Jr. may start avoiding you and turn antisocial.

"We really wanted something where it feels like a presence," Menor said. "So it's not just a product or a device that you have. It's more ... really like you have a dog."

No question, there's something a little creepy about having a Wi-Fi-enabled smart robot patrolling your house equipped with cameras and microphones. But Menor says they're incorporating secure technology that's not easy to crack into. Jr. will only communicate in an unencrypted way with a paired owner's phone. Moreover, Menor explained, the way Jr. stores skills and data, it's not really possible for someone to implement a malicious skill that could send images or sounds to strangers, since data can only be transmitted to its owner.

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Each Jr. adapts uniquely to its owner. But if you ignore it, Jr. may start avoiding you. Roambotics hide caption

itoggle caption Roambotics

Each Jr. adapts uniquely to its owner. But if you ignore it, Jr. may start avoiding you.

Roambotics

Pre-orders for the $499 robot should start in April, with shipments expected in the second half of 2015. Roambotics plans to open an API (application programming interface) for Jr. later in 2015, as well. That means that much like your smartphone, developers will be able to come up with new ideas for how to program Jr. Menor said Roambotics plans to launch a "skill store" — like an app store — where owners could buy different skills people have developed to make Jr. smarter and more useful. Down the road, it might even have health care monitoring capabilities, according to Menor. Jr. may eventually be able to monitor your heart rate and respiration or if you fall. Like fitness trackers, it could also be used to detect your sleep cycles and activity.

For Jr. to be a true success, it will need to seamlessly integrate into our lives. Despite the hype surrounding Google Glass, the device still hasn't reached mainstream appeal because (a) the original version looks ridiculous on people's faces; and (b) it feels unnatural to see people interacting with them in their daily lives. By making Jr. more petlike, however, Roambotics might have found the key to making these gadgets welcome in more homes.

No one's saying a robot will ever replace man's best friend, but it's highly conceivable that someday soon we'll have bots alongside us at the dinner table and beside our beds at night. And while you may never want to toss a ball with Jr., keep in mind you also won't have to stock up on dog food. Jr. feeds itself: The robot is programmed to find its charging station in your house on its own.

Vignesh Ramachandran is a tech buff and journalist working in the San Francisco Bay Area. Follow him on Twitter @VigneshR.

In our "Weekly Innovation" blog series, we explore an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Do you have an innovation to share? Use this quick form.

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A group of hackers, allegedly from Russia, found a fundamental flaw in Microsoft Windows and exploited it to spy on Western governments, NATO, European energy companies and an academic organization in the United States.

That's according to new research from iSight Partners, a Dallas-based cybersecurity firm.

Last month, the U.S. and the U.K. were preparing to meet at a NATO summit to talk about Ukraine. Emails were flying back and forth. Different experts were offering to talk at the conference. And in the midst of all the digital traffic, hackers jumped into the conversation.

Patrick McBride, a spokesman with iSight, says the hackers targeted specific officials using a well-known kind of attack called spear-phishing. Hackers would craft a message with a PowerPoint document attached. For example, they'd say, "We'd like to be involved in the conference."

And when an unknowing recipient opened the corrupted PowerPoint, the file was exploited to load a piece of malware onto the computer that the attacker could then use later to "exfiltrate documents," McBride says.

The hacker group, dubbed the "Sandworm Team," allegedly pulled emails and documents off computers from NATO, Ukrainian government groups, Western European government officials, and energy sector and telecommunications firms.

In the mad dash to grab information, McBride says, the hackers got a little sloppy and dropped hints about their identity. He says they're Russian, "but we can't pinpoint if they work for the Russian government or work in a particular department in the government."

The Russian embassy did not immediately respond to NPR's inquiry. Microsoft says that Tuesday, it's patching the security flaw so that PowerPoint and other Office products can't be exploited again in the same way.

Lonnie Benavides, a researcher with the cybersecurity services firm DocuSign, says if the findings are true, they represent an interesting turn of events. "Typically Russians stick to making money, stick to stealing credit cards and identities as far as trends go," he says.

Federal authorities are investigating the role of Russian hackers in the major breach against JPMorgan Chase.

Benavides says Russia provides an enabling environment for cyber offenses — whether it's crime like stealing credit cards, or espionage to steal state secrets — because the country has some very talented hackers who do not get prosecuted.

"I'm certainly not seeing waves of people that are being put in jail, in order to send a message, in order for this to stop," he says.

Even though the iSight report points to code that was in the Russian language, Benavides would not jump to the conclusion that the hacker group is state-sponsored or even from Russia. "There's an attribution problem," he says.

On Tuesday in London, the judging panel for Britain's 2014 Man Booker Prize for literature announced this year's winner: The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Australian Richard Flanagan.

The novel, Flanagan's sixth, tells the story of POWs in World War II who were forced by their captors to work on the Thailand-Burma Railway, also known as the "Death Railway" for the more than 100,000 who died in the process of building it.

NPR's Lynn Neary reported that the book was inspired by Flanagan's father, who was a real-life POW made to work on the railway. She says Flanagan's father died on the same day his son told him the novel was complete.

Lynn adds:

"A.C. Grayling, who chaired the judge's committee, called it a 'magnificent novel of love and war.' It is, he said, 'the book that Richard Flanagan was born to write.' "

This was the first year the Man Booker Prize was open to American writers. NPR reported in September that two Americans were shortlisted for the award this year: Joshua Ferris for his work To Rise Again at a Decent Hour and Karen Joy Fowler for her novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

More from Lynn:

"The Man Booker Prize has always been open to writers in the U.K. and commonwealth countries. The decision to include writers from the U.S. was a controversial one, but Grayling said in the end, Americans did not 'overwhelm' the process."

NPR book critic Alan Cheuse reviewed The Narrow Road in August of this year:

"Flanagan's descriptions of the daily round of increased labor, diminishing food and nightmarish hygiene make for difficult reading. The set-pieces showing off Japanese cruelty seem almost beyond credulity, as when one Japanese officer describes in great detail how an older officer instructed him in the proper way to behead prisoners, or when we hear eyewitness testimony about the experimental live dissection of a prisoner of war, or the stark physical descriptions of prisoners in various states of sickness and dying. All this makes for a portrait of war in the Pacific that could have been rendered by Hieronymus Bosch. ...

"After setting down this eccentric masterwork of a novel, full of deep insight, afflicted love and cosmic passion alongside painful, even horrendous suffering, Flanagan's music still plays on and on in my head."

richard flanagan

Man Booker Prize

On Tuesday in London, the judging panel for Britain's 2014 Man Booker Prize for literature announced this year's winner: The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Australian Richard Flanagan.

The novel, Flanagan's sixth, tells the story of POWs in World War II who were forced by their captors to work on the Thailand-Burma Railway, also known as the "Death Railway" for the more than 100,000 who died in the process of building it.

NPR's Lynn Neary reported that the book was inspired by Flanagan's father, who was a real-life POW made to work on the railway. She says Flanagan's father died on the same day his son told him the novel was complete.

Lynn adds:

"A.C. Grayling who chaired the judge's committee called it a 'magnificent novel of love and war.' It is, he said, 'the book that Richard Flanagan was born to write.' "

This was the first year the Man Booker Prize was open to American writers. NPR reported in September that two Americans were shortlisted for the award this year: Joshua Ferris for his work To Rise Again at a Decent Hour and Karen Joy Fowler for her novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

More from Lynn:

"The Man Booker Prize has always been open to writers in the U.K. and commonwealth countries. The decision to include writers from the U.S. was a controversial one but Grayling said in the end, Americans did not 'overwhelm' the process."

NPR book critic Alan Cheuse reviewed The Narrow Road in August of this year:

"Flanagan's descriptions of the daily round of increased labor, diminishing food and nightmarish hygiene make for difficult reading. The set-pieces showing off Japanese cruelty seem almost beyond credulity, as when one Japanese officer describes in great detail how an older officer instructed him in the proper way to behead prisoners, or when we hear eyewitness testimony about the experimental live dissection of a prisoner of war, or the stark physical descriptions of prisoners in various states of sickness and dying. All this makes for a portrait of war in the Pacific that could have been rendered by Hieronymus Bosch....

"After setting down this eccentric masterwork of a novel, full of deep insight, afflicted love and cosmic passion alongside painful, even horrendous suffering, Flanagan's music still plays on and on in my head."

richard flanagan

Man Booker Prize