Steambots promise to delight, terrify
 

"In a troubling development for the eventual war between man and machine, scientists in Germany have invented a steam-powered robot that will presumably be able to fuel itself with wood and water even after our descendants have managed to disable the rest of their mechanical enemies by cutting off their power supplies. Actually, the bot that you see pictured above is just a toy -- albeit an expensive one, at $300 -- that e-tailer Robot Island plans to import and distribute Stateside this summer, and we highly doubt that it's endowed with nearly enough abilities to make it capable of world domination. Still, we did see that movie Small Soldiers, so we know that sometimes even the most benign-looking toys can go bad."

http://www.retrothing.com/2006/05/robot_island_pr.html