Despite wonderful technological advances, the humanoids that we have created so far fall extremely short of those we have imagined within movies and books. At the Innorobo robotics summit in Lyon last week, I saw all sorts of delightful and adorable humanoids (Acroban, Nao and Darwin to name a few), but witnessed them fall over, run out of batteries, fail to understand people and break down completely. These are lovely, and very expensive, toys -- as opposed to viable butlers, nurses or companions. Our expectations are, frankly, too great.