Scooba gets smaller for toilet duty

An interesting new robot this year was iRobot's Scooba 230 floor-scrubber. At 6.5 inches across, it's billed as the most compact robot of its kind, and is designed to get into those tight spots around toilets. It will sell for $299.99.

iRobot also updated its popular Roomba series of robot vacuum cleaners (see demo here). According to the company, the latest Roombas are 20 percent better at picking up fine dirt and have improved ability to suck trapped hair and debris from their brushes.