iRobot

Is Roomba going square?

Besides celebrating the vac-bot's tenth birthday today, iRobot announced that it's buying Evolution Robotics, whose sleek, four-sided Mint droid cleans hard surfaces with disposable cloths.

The $74 million deal brings the compact, lightweight Mint into the iRobot fold, giving the vacubot maker another product to tackle floors that aren't carpeted.

The scrubber was a potential rival to iRobot's Scooba robot. Now iRobot will get Evolution's know-how in sensing, navigation, and artificial intelligence, built up over 10 years.

"It's more about growing our capabilities -- both product line and long-term … Read more

When MIT roboticists wanted to launch an automated domestic vacuum cleaner for the masses, some of their backers balked at calling it a "robot." People wouldn't accept a robot in their homes, they said.

Ten years and more than 6 million sales later, iRobot's Roomba has proved that robots are very welcome. In fact, we can't wait for them to do more than just suck up dirt.

Roomba marks a milestone today, a decade since first rolling off the production line in 2002. In branding the machine, iRobot, a military-robotics company, tried to convey a sense of movement and fun along with "room" to emphasize being at home. The "Roomba" is now in homes around the world. … Read more

If robots could run for president, which would you vote for?

Nobody doubts that machines would make better leaders than meatsack politicians, but there are so many to choose from. Carnegie Mellon University is helping out by letting us humans elect inductees for its Robot Hall of Fame.

The prestige has been awarded to real robots such as Honda's Asimo, as well as characters like C-3P0 and R2-D2 from "Star Wars." The unprecedented public participation in choosing the members follows years of inactivity at the hall, which was created in 2003 but last added new robots in 2008. … Read more

Autumn is a-comin' down the track, and with it the whiff of rotting leaves and election promises. Robots can clear away the former now, the latter after the revolution.

iRobot is updating its Looj gutter cleaner, a leaf-churner extraordinaire that reduces the time it takes to unclog your gutters.

If you're not familiar with Looj, it's a portable, waterproof, rotating scrubber on treads. You set it in your eavestrough and it trundles along, spitting out leaves, needles, and other gunk with its spinning rubber flaps. Messy but effective. … Read more

If you like your vacuum-cleaning robots on the fancy side, iRobot's latest addition to the Roomba lineup has a few features that make it easier to use.

The Roomba 790 is part of the 700 series but has a blue faceplate to distinguish it from other models.

The main selling point for the 790 is a radio-frequency remote control that lets you steer Roomba around from almost anywhere in your house (also perfect for when your cat pounces on it), clean specific spots, schedule vacuuming, and order the bot back to its charging station.

For $699.99, you also … Read more

It would appear the robotics industry is having its Linux moment, which backers hope will unleash a torrent of creativity around robots. But not everyone's convinced that's a good thing.

Robotics company Willow Garage yesterday created an open-source body to shepherd the development of its ROS (Robot Operating System). Called the Open Source Robotics Foundation, the goal is get more people writing software for robots, particularly for commercial and consumer use, say its creators.

Everyone agrees robots need killer apps to graduate beyond curiosities and cool demos, much the way the spreadsheet helped catalyze the PC movement. And … Read more

We all crave more interactive, slightly frightening robots, right? It's kinda thrilling. Thank the maker, then, that Sharp is coming out with pricey floor-cleaning droids that can jabber away in three languages.

The voice-controlled Cocorobo can kibitz in English, Chinese, and Japanese, even in the latter's Kansai dialect associated with the city of Osaka. It's the choice of standup comics, so this robot could come across as slightly funnier than, say, a HAL 9000.

Imagine Roomba replying to you with a bit of Texas slang. … Read more

BEDFORD, Mass. -- In the movies, robots always have a mind of their own. But for iRobot's military bots, it's a slow process of gaining more smarts.

The company's latest military robots, which run on caterpillar tracks and resemble miniature tanks, are slowly adding autonomous features to improve their capabilities.

iRobot's latest military robot, the throwable 110 FirstLook, has the ability to right itself if it lands upside down and retrace its tracks if it gets out of communications range. A group of these encyclopedia-size robots will soon be able to create a mesh network to … Read more

BURLINGTON, Mass.--Someday soon Ava the robot may bring you to the Roomba vacuum cleaners at Best Buy or call you if an elderly relative at home fell down and can't get up. But first she has to get in the good graces of doctors.

Ava is iRobot's three-wheeled pedestal-shaped robot that sports a tablet computer as its "head," the primary user interface. If the pieces fall into place as its creators hope, Ava will be the company's ticket into new markets beyond its remote-controlled military bots and Roomba-led home cleaning products.

iRobot will start trials this year of Ava in a couple of her target industries of health care, retail, and building security, CEO Colin Angle said in an interview with CNET. During a demo last week at the company's headquarters here, a prototype Ava smoothly navigated through iRobot's office space based on a map it had generated itself.

Although its movements were not flawless (table tops remain a challenge), Ava points to a new era in mobile robots brought about by advances in other technologies, notably by better sensors.

"So much of robotics has to do with physical motion--navigation around our environment and doing increasingly high-level tasks--it makes these two initial markets (of military and home cleaning) seem pedestrian versus the dream of what's possible," said Angle.… Read more