By Mark O’Neill

I’ve just seen something seriously cool on the German TV news about the Nuernberg Toy Fair. A company called Nikko has made and released a 6.5 meter model of R2-D2 which can be used as a movie projector, CD player and iPod player.

Remember the scene in Star Wars when R2 plays the holographic message of Princess Leia to Obi-Wan? Well for the bargain basement price of $2,500 (a steal!), you can have your own R2 unit projecting your DVD movies onto your own cinema screen. I can’t say how good the picture quality is but for $2,500, you can be reasonably sure that it is at least decent quality.

Or alternatively you can play your music CD’s or your IPod music on Artoo’s “integrated 20W speakers”. You can even project your digital photos directly from a USB stick or memory card plugged into one of the robot’s sockets.

The R2 unit can be moved backwards and forwards by controls embedded inside a Millenium Falcon model. So after playing your movies, you can send it off to the kitchen with a tray on its head to serve drinks on your barge.

Below is a YouTube video of the Artoo model when it appeared at the CES in Las Vegas recently. Nothing really exciting in the video – just it scooting around doing its beeping act. But it gives you an idea of how it looks and how mobile it is.