VacuumRobot
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The Distro Interview: MSI Senior Vice President and co-founder, Jeans Huang
The MSI brand should be no stranger to connoisseurs of desktop motherboards, graphics cards and gaming laptops, but did you know that this Taiwanese company started off as a computer terminal maker 26 years ago? To find out more, we sat down with the very likable Senior Vice President (R&D Division) Jeans Huang. Read on to hear the co-founder's interesting story on how MSI was formed by five ex-Sony engineers, his frank reason behind MSI's reluctance to enter the smartphone market, and his thoughts on 3D display on the PC.
Toshiba Smarbo takes on dirt, Roomba, music playing prowess unclear
Toshiba is just the latest company to enter the robovac fray. Samsung, ASUS and LG have already tested the waters against the mighty iRobot, now it's Smarbo's turn to try its hand at automated vacuuming. Inside the round floor cleaner are 38 sensors that help it avoid obstacles and keep it from falling down stairs, as well as a CPU or CPUs that sport "double brain function" according to the machine translated PR. The bot is quite quick, supposedly able to clean 100 square meters (over 1,000 square feet) in about 90 minutes, and only uses a few pennies worth of electricity to do so. Toshiba's vacubot will hit shelves in Japan for around $1,100 on October first, but it does suffer one distinct disadvantage -- DJ Smarbo just doesn't have the same ring to it.
LG RoboKing vacuum bot can self-diagnose, ask for help after colliding with your Roomba
Sick of all those one-way chats with your Roomba 700? LG's got you covered with its latest self-diagnosing robotized cleaning assistant. The newest RoboKing -- the VR6172LVM -- will set you back 779,000 Won (around $730), and apparently sports a low noise 48dB design (when it's not talking, we presume). Most intriguing to us, however, is the bot's ability to run diagnostics at the press of a button, enunciating its ailments if any one of the fourteen testable components are, in-fact, broken. We imagine your carpet would be happy to welcome Robo to the family, but when you have two pets to brush and all kitty can do is meow, we surmise the vacuum will come forth as King.
Samsung's Tango robot vacuum uses cameras to clean your floors, duvet covers
Just because a Samsung vacbot never cleaned your floors doesn't mean they're not out there somewhere, attacking dust on hardwood and carpet -- and apparently Egyptian cotton too if the above picture is anything to go by. This Tango is the latest from the company, following in the tracks of the Furot and Hauzen and sharing their dual spinny brush design. Tango is said to use a 30fps camera to tell where he's going, a gyro to keep a sense of direction, and crash sensors that now can detect furniture and feet from up to 2cm away. Prices will range from ₩500,000 to ₩700,000 and, though that equates to between $425 and $600 American, the stores these will be available in probably won't take dollars.
