For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Sony's decision to ditch its Aibo robotic dog, along with its entire robot development team, is a reminder that we are still a long way from the age of automated domestic servants. Architects of the Robot Age have been busy rethinking the future. In the 1980s you could hardly move for suggestions that the Robot Age was upon us. From Metal Mickey, the wisecracking, head-spinning star of his eponymous sitcom, to the stylishly choreographed Fiat advert in which the Italian carmaker smugly revealed how it had apparently dispensed with humans altogether...