Here's the lastest look at the best of CES 2011, volume two, from telepresence robots and smartphone-controlled toys to Pixel Qi and Chumby.

iRobot may be more familiar to you as the folks behind the neat Roomba and Scooba automatic floor vaccuming/mopping robots, but at CES the company's pulled off something of a scoop in the robotics world with its own telepresence robot. Dubbed AVA (short for Avatar) the device is intended to leverage all of iRobot's expertise in intelligent self-navigating devices and bring it to a whole new market.

Best of all, AVA is designed to be potentially a pretty cheap machine (compared to some of its multi-thousand-dollar competition at least). One trick to help with this is that part of the 'bot's brains and display system is neatly filled with an Apple iPad. Another trick is instead of tricky dedicated sensor and imaging systems to help the robot navigate, avoid objects and so on, iRobot's using two PrimeSense systems--the same technology that powers Microsoft's Kinect. Add in the requisite microphones, speakers, bump sensors, Wi-Fi links, ability to navigate automatically to a charging station, and a neat motorized extendable mast for it's "head" and what you've got is a very potent and downright simplistic telepresence machine.

AVA even intelligently maps out its environment, unlike some telepresence bots, and can thus navigate more efficiently. Since it's based around the iPad, iRobot's also asking clever app developers to put together special software to help it run.

Price, availability TBD--but the system looks very developed, and iRobot already has well-defined routes to market.

File this under, potentially pointless, quirky, hilariously fun, and "was once a future toy in old sci-fi magazines." It's Robotix's Sphero robot, a 74mm electronic, wireless, remote-controlled rolling ball toy.

That's about all you need to know really, apart from the fact that it's remote control isn't a clunky RF unit with levers, but a Bluetooth-connecting app on your iPhone. The company's seeing it as a development platform, rather than a stand-alone, and they're putting together an API so that third party developers can craft games, apps and innovative uses for the diminutive rollers.

Price, TBD but is quoted as "under $100." Availability: Inside six months.

Smartphones and universal remote controls (for home entertainment systems, or what-not) are a natural mix--that smartphone real estate is so perfect for dynamic display and touchscreen control of different remote button configurations. But smartphones tend to operate exclusively over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth nowadays, and Blu-ray players and TVs need infra-red signals. Previous devices that marry the two often use plug-in dongles or sleeve-like cases to add the IR power to the phone.

Enter Griffin's Beacon system, a dongle-free solution. Here the dedicated app sends Bluetooth signals to a powered base unit that then sends the requisite IR signals. It's neater, more esthetically pleasing and doesn't even need wires, as it can run for two months on just four AA batteries.

Price: $80. Availability: May 2011.

We've heard a lot about Pixel Qi's clever half e-paper, half LCD screens for ages, and recently the company was touting its 7-inch unit production ramp-up. Now the firm's taken some to CES and showed them off to journalists--including the folks at Engadget. On the whole, the units were being promoted as DIY modification to existing gadgets, as we've seen before.

But as well as Pixel Qi's 10.1-inch unit going into the Notion Ink Adam, the firm also revealed that it's working on a higher-resolution 10.1-inch unit with 1280 by 800 pixels, and a similar 9.7-inch unit for "partners." That means that soon we'll be seeing Pixel Qi's novel display tech in several devices--possibly from a "major" partner.

Price TBD. Availability TBD.

A Chumby is one heck of a technological curio--a tiny non-multitouch touchscreen tablet, with a palm-sized screen, incapable of going mobile, and requiring a permanent wireless link over Wi-Fi to the Net. It launched in 2006, and has remained a curiosity ever since, with its numerous Adobe Flash-powered apps and motion-sensors it was arguably the most advanced alarm clock in the world, until the iPhone arrived.

Nowadays the Chumby seems to pale in usefulness against the iPhone, and the bigger iPad. But Chumby Industries just unveiled the Chumby 8 at CES, demonstrating that there's still a viable business. The model 8 is a big evolution, with an 8-inch screen versus the original's 3.5-inches, and both SD and CompactFlash slots for expansion. It's likely to be offered to third parties for development, so we'll not see it in real sale-able gadgets for some time.

Price: TBD. Availability: TBD.

What else to say about the most recent version of the Beamz music player other than what the company says itself? "Make Music With Laser Beams!" and "The Beamz Interactive Music System has been recognized by media experts as a hot gift for tweens, an innovative teaching tool for music educators and an extroadinary product for anyone to make music," from the company's own website pretty much says it all.

Imagine an evolution of the Theremin (the electronic "violin" instrument you'll probably recognize best as the key sound effect in the Beach Boys Good Vibrations) powered by lasers, and honed over several iterations of the product.

Price: $200. Availability, now. Fun factor: Great for "monkeying about with" according to one reviewer at CES.