In the weeks leading up to the debut last night (Jan 13th) ofthe new Fox TV show "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" much of its national outdoor advertising campaign (bus-stop and billboard posters) featured the poster shown left of the show's attractive actress Summer Glau who plays the half-woman/half-robot terminator unit Cameron Phillips sent to protect John Connor - Sarah's son.
No doubt this image of a sexy woman who is really a robot will fuel discussion or at least fantasies (especially with lusty hetero males) on the popular, recurring Sci-Fi theme of the possibility of humans having relationships with human-like robots.
But really, just how likely is a time when humans will have sexual or loving relationships with lifelike female, male, or transgender robots? Well according to David Levy, an expert in robots and artificial intelligence, a time when humans will routinely be having sex with robots is actually only about forty years into the future.
Levy, author of "Robots Unlimited" that was published in 2005 and more recently the provocative book
"Love + Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships" which was just published by Harper Collins, asserts that such technological advances are just around the corner and that they will be not considered weird but, he believes, generally be very warmly accepted. If he is right by the year 2048 companies like Apple or Microsoft will be releasing some new interactive, fully functional lifelike robots. And you thought the new iPhone or the latest Xbox created a buzz!. Wait 'til the new seXbox or the new iSexbot hit the marketplace! Can you imagine the lines? The pre-orders!
A couple of weeks ago in San Francisco at the big Apple computer "special event" titled "The Beat Goes On" - to unveil all the new Apple iPod models the innovative company's mainman Steve Jobs gave Cali emcee P.E.A.C.E. of Freestyle Fellowship a major plug by featuring the artist on the giant screen at the Moscone Center during his September 5th keynote speech in which, as an example of a video-podcast, he played a short G4 segment featuring the Freestyle Fellowship emcee off a new Nano model. 
Meantime a couple of days ago I visited the Apple Store in Manhattan and even though it was near 11PM (the box-shaped Fifth Avenue store is open 24 hours) the place was packed to the rafters with salivating consumers in a long line desperate to part with their money in exchange for some shiny new iProduct. "This is nothing compared to earlier today," noted one iEmployee whjile eyeballing the line of about 40 customers all patiently queuing up for an average of twenty minutes to buy iPhones and iPods and other stuff.