iRobot

iRobot is introducing a new pint-size spybot that users can throw or even submerge in water before it starts roving around and doing surveillance.

The 110 FirstLook is a rugged little remote-controlled machine that's 10 inches long and weighs less than 5 pounds. It has four cameras and IR lights for night work, as well as a pair of flippers to overcome obstacles and right itself (see vid below).

With a top speed of 3.5 mph, FirstLook can roll around for 6 hours per charge or operate for 10 hours while stationary. It's controlled from a wrist-mounted touch-screen remote, seen above. … Read more

Telepresence robots are way cool, but way expensive. We've seen several platforms for these machines that let you remotely guide a robot around a distant location, with prices ranging from $15,000 for Anybots' QB system to $3,000 for the R.BOT 100.

Well, Google's Johnny Chung Lee has a history of creating low-cost versions of very expensive devices, such as his $14 steadycam, and a homemade electronic whiteboard that uses the Wii Remote.

To keep in touch with his fiancee after moving to Mountain View, Calif., where Google's headquarters are located, Lee made his own telepresence robot for only $500. … Read more

If you ever feel like robots are getting the upper hand on humanity, consider using your own hands to put them in their place.

Researcher Akihiro Nakamura from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in Japan has developed a motion controller for iRobot's Roomba vacuum bots that recognizes his gestures and posture.

The system is yet another Microsoft Kinect hack using the OpenNI API. The gestural interface eliminates the need to bend over and push Roomba's buttons. It also allows you to lord it over the overgrown hockey puck.

First, to calibrate the Kinect you have to assume a hands-up stance (either humiliating or all-powerful, depending on your perspective). Then the system starts recognizing gestures, as seen in the demo above. To make Roomba clean a spot on the floor that it missed, assume a scolding stance: left hand on your hip, and right hand pointing at the offending dirt. Roomba scoots over to the spot and does a thorough hoovering. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--What if you could control a 5-foot-tall robot with your iPad? iRobot's AVA, introduced today at the Consumer Electronics Show, is a self-navigating, tablet-controlled droid that can map out environments, project your presence into remote locations, and turn virtually any app into a mobile platform.

"You just tap your tablet screen to tell it where to go," said iRobot CEO Colin Angle, who introduced a prototype of the machine. "It could be serving drinks or act as a mobile alarm clock."

AVA, short for "avatar," is a three-wheel platform that runs on … Read more

LAS VEGAS--LG Electronics is showing off its Smart Hom-Bot robot vacuum this week at CES 2011, part of its Thinq smart home appliance lineup.

With iRobot introducing an upgraded series of its dominant Roomba vac-bots at CES, the onus was on the Korean electronics giant to distinguish its product.

The Smart Hom-Bot, weighing about 7.7 pounds and standing 3.5 inches tall, can clean hardwood floors and lightweight carpets. Like Roomba, it also has edge-detect sensors so it doesn't plunge over drop-offs.

But unlike Roomba, it cleans by mapping out the room with a ultrasonic and infrared sensors … Read more

LAS VEGAS--iRobot demoed its updated line of robot floor cleaners at CES 2011, showing off a more powerful Roomba vacuum bot and a much more compact Scooba floor scrubber.

Roomba hoovered some crushed Cheerios, while Scooba got to work on a coffee-stained tile floor. Both robots go on sale this spring. They're similar to their predecessors, but have important differences.

Both updates have the iAdapt cleaning tech, a sensor and software system that monitors the floor more than 60 times per second and chooses from dozens of robot behaviors to get the job done, the company says.

I played around with the Scooba 350 last year, and wasn't crazy about its bulk, which proved a bit of a pain when emptying the cleaning fluid tanks.

At only 6.5 inches across and 3.5 inches tall, the new Scooba 230 has a much smaller footprint, making maintenance easier, and it can be grabbed with one hand. The new size, however, is mainly designed to allow the robot to get into tight corners around toilets, which was never a delightful chore anyway.

The 230 can scrub up to 150 square feet of sealed hardwood, tile, or linoleum floors, and has edge-detect sensors to keep it away from stairs and drop-offs while working. The company says it can neutralize up to 97 percent of common household bacteria.

A neat feature is how the reservoirs work: An active reservoir system separates the cleaning solution from the dirty water. The active reservoir shrinks as more cleaning fluid is put down on the floor, allowing it to suck up more dirty water. iRobot says this eliminates dirty water from the cleaning area so the robot isn't just moving dirt around like a mop can. … Read more

People who hate housework will soon have two more robots to handle the chores.

iRobot this week will unveil the Scooba 230 floor washer and the next-generation Roomba 700 series of vacuums.

iRobot already has a line of Scooba floor washers, but the company is touting the Scooba 230 as a leaner cleaner. At 3.5 inches high and 6.5 inches wide, the 230 is geared to squeeze into tight places, such as underneath furniture and around bathroom fixtures. The 230 holds enough cleaning fluid to take care of 150 square feet of space in one session, iRobot said.… Read more

If you've got ground coffee and a few party balloons lying around, you have the ingredients for a universal robot gripper, according to researchers at Cornell University, the University of Chicago, and iRobot.

In a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers including Hod Lipson, associate professor of mechanical engineering and computer science at Cornell, describe how they used granular material instead of multijointed fingers to create a robot gripper.

The researchers put ground coffee into a latex balloon and attached it to a robot arm. When the coffee balloon is pressed around an object … Read more

It's the 21st century, and robots are supposed to be doing everything for us now. As with personal jet packs, that hasn't happened. But Evolution Robotics' Mint is one of a number of floor-cleaning robots designed to lighten the housework load.

Announced at CES earlier this year and shipping this fall, Mint is an automatic floor cleaner--not a vacuum like iRobot's Roomba. You put a wet or dry dust cloth on the removable cleaning pad, push a button, and Mint gets to work.

Mint is somewhat comparable to low-cost dusting robots like the $50 RoboMop, but at $249 it's almost in the same league as more sophisticated floor-washing machines like iRobot's Scooba. Scooba retails for $299 and up, and has been on the market for nearly five years.

I happened to have a Scooba 350 at home, so when I got my hands on a Mint, I decided to compare the bots' performance on my hardwood and tile floors. They're two very different machines, but let's see how they stack up. … Read more