Virtual guard dog also serves as light

It looks like a watermelon-sized eyeball on wheels that glows in hues of purple, blue and orange while gurgling with whimsical buzzes and rings. But the new Roborior gadget isn’t just interior decor.

It’s also a virtual guard dog. It sports a digital camera, infrared sensors and videophone capability so that absent homeowners can be notified of intruders.

When the $2,600 contraption – by Japanese robot maker Tmsuk Co. Ltd. and Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. – detects an intruder with one of its three infrared sensors, it will call its owner’s cell phone and relay streaming video of the scene.

The phone handset can remotely operate the Roborior, telling it to go forward, backward, left or right, or to adjust the angle of the digital camera.

Roborior – the name is a combination of “robot” and “interior” – is set to go on sale in Japan in November or December. There are no overseas sales plans so far.

Designed by Paul White, Roborior is meant to be a fashionable floor light that won’t assert a pet-like personality common in other Japanese security and entertainment robots.

Health coverage cited as top perk by workers

The upward spiral of health-care costs in recent years has made employer-sponsored health coverage a premium perk for many workers. A recent survey about job-benefit desirability bears it out.

More than half of adults, 58 percent, said participation in a health plan was the best choice among possible employee benefits.

The next option, a $500 salary increase, was cited by only 14 percent. Participation in a 401(k) plan with a company match was chosen by 12 percent and 8 percent said paid life and disability insurance. Only 2 percent said they’d pick an extra five vacation days.

And the interest on health care was not limited to the older among us – 52 percent of the Generation X crowd, the group following the baby boomers, also chose health insurance benefits as their first choice.

The survey of 1,092 adults was commissioned by Medco Health Solutions Inc., a Franklin Lakes, N.J.-based manager of prescription drug programs.

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