Researchers at University of California Berkeley have deveoped a robot that folds towels. Jeremy Maitin-Shepard and Pieter Abbeel and their team undertook this challenge because the robots need to perceive and manipulate "deformable objects". Towels are floppy, so their shape isn't predictable. The robots need to be able to observe the shape and position of the towel when they pick it up, before deciding on the best approach to folding it. There is also the chance that Jeremy and Pieter simply thought of this on washing day. Hopefully they did some washing the traditional way while they worked on perfecting the robot's skills. This video has been sped up 30 times, but it's still impressive stuff.