RoboBusiness show points way to future advances

We're still waiting for the all-purpose robot servant that can cook our meals, do our laundry and clean our house, but in the meantime, we'll have to make do with the more humble offerings that were on display this week at the annual RoboBusiness conference in Cambridge, Mass. News.com points out that iRobot, maker of the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, boasted that it has sold 1.5 million units, and is developing an explosives-disposal robot for the U.S. military. iRobot Chairman and Co-founder Helen Greiner pointed to a positive future for personal robots: "The question is no longer, Will you have a robot in your home in the future? But instead, How many?" Other exhibitors included Sony (which showed off the latest Aibos, of course), Microsoft and John Deere. No servants, but we're still encouraged; any robotics "show that has briefings with titles like "New Species Engineering" and "Personal Robots Arise!" is okay by us.

[LouSir @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

I always thought it would be a good idea to clean minefields with really cheap radio controlled devices or even better a robot that could search a grid.

You send out a fleet of them. If they run over a land mine and blow up, who cares.

LouSir

[action80 @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

Are those Roombas really any good?

[miss pistola @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

What a peice of crap. The level of commerical robotics R&D going on in the US is abysmal. This is the best we can come up with? Something lame disc-shaped sweeper "robot" with all the technological sophistication of a bump-n-go toy from the 70s? Meanwhile the Japanese are making products like Aibo, soon Qrio. True those cost a lot more, but still...no US company seems to care about the potential of domestic and entertainment robots.

[Wei @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

Do you own one to know what you're talking about? The Roomba is disc shaped so it can get tough to reach places under your bed and certain furniture. It's also round so it wouldn't get caught up on various objects that are placed on your floor. I sure wouldn't want my vaccum to look like an Aibo. Speaking of which, what does that thing do anyway?

[mehool @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

yeah Miss Pisola, the Aibo sucks, who needs a robotic dog? Atleast the Roomba does something useful. And the Qrio, also useless.

by the way, the maker of the Roomba is named IRobot? umm, i didn't hear any lawsuit news between the company and the movie?! Well, that's a good thing, there are enough stupid lawsuits out there. But still..it is surprising that the company is named the same as a movie about evil bots.

speaking of stupid lawsuits how about Nissan's Q7 lawsuit

[norebonomis @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

what happens when our 'robot servant' rebels? will i be able to pull the switch in time?

[Prof. K. @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

The Roomba is like letting an eight-year old vacuum. The quality isn't quite what you would do yourself, but it is quite satisfactory. Our Roomba does most of the vacumming in our house now, and we often turn it on just as we are going out the door. Note that you do have to take care to pick up after yourself. Like a typical eight-year old, Roomba has no qualms about attempting to vacuum up a sock.