Rod Brooks was in San Francisco last weekend (8 Sept 2007) with video of current and previous generation Roombas, and with much to say about their insect-level intelligence - as well as about AGI in general. Video should be up on www.singinst.org sometime in the near future.

According to a recent article in Asia Times Online, iRobot is also making military robotic devices that are now being deployed in Afghanistan.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH29Ak01.html

Don't halt the presses or anything, a great many manufacturing companies sell to the military as well as the consumer. It's How the World Works.

I bought the original Roomba way back when. Even it did pretty good on pet hair, so I presume that the newer ones are even better. I'd venture a guess that MANY people with pets buy these just for the hair pickup. We've three dogs and one inside cat so I know of what I speak.

The original roomba that I have would ride itself up onto tubular steel chair legs and get stuck there sometimes. It had a real problem with carpet that were deep pile. Because of the pets, as the carpet has worn we've replaced it with tile or hardwood. The Roomba will run a lot longer on a hard surface than a carpeted one simple because of the extra drag on wheels and brushes created by the carpet fiber.

I'm glad to see them add the auto return to recharge station (which I think might have been on the previous model as well). The virtual walls work well. Dirt capacity has been greatly increased since the initial models.

You're paying for all that extra goodness though. The original cost me right at $200 if memory serves.

Enjoy.

I also want to know if this is actually a vacuum cleaner. The earlier versions were nothing more than motorized carpet sweepers, and, as we all know, the carpet sweeper is the biggest scam perpetrated on the American public since One-Hour Martinizing.

...before Apple introduces one with built in wi-fi and an iPhone...

but the old one really did suck (in the bad way). It would do a room and you could hardly even tell the difference; it picked up almost nothing. It also did not do nearly as good a job of getting around to everywhere in the room as it was supposed to. I mean, I could understand if it was just not getting behind a toilet or something (?), but this wouldn't even get to the other half of the living room because it couldn't find its way around the couch that sticks out halfway across the room. Maybe it was just the specific unit we got, or some idiosyncracy with our particular carpet or our particular dog's hair, but it really didn't work. We still have it, but long ago stopped using it.

can the roomba get over door sills?

I for one welcome our new benevolent robot sucker overlords.

We have two Corgi's (triple coats) and the older model works quite well. Yes the compartment is a little small but hey it works while we're gone and that is what's great!

I love my roomba (I call 'im "8ball") but one day I came home from work and found a crime scene.

My laptop was lying on it's back under the kitchen table while 8ball was hiding under the ottoman chewing away on the iMac's power cord. It "rrrrr'd" and beeped as it probably had been for the past hour trying to gobble up what it could of the cable. I swear it looked guilty as I pulled it out from underneath the furniture and yanked the wire out of it's mouth.

I got 8ball back on his homebase and did triage. I had left the laptop on the kitchen table and made the unforgivable sin of not checking to make sure it's power cable wasn't touching the floor, I just left for work without even thinking about how I was leaving the laptop in such a vulnerable position. 8ball came across the wire, wouldn't let it go, and eventually was able to pull it's victim completely off the table. Luckily, the laptop lived (what a trooper), but the power cord was beyond repair.

The guys in the Apple store thought this was hysterical,

'specially since I had to shell out ~$70 to get a new cord.

Out of Salon's servers? The screeching halt to shitty performance is starting earlier and earlier every day.

It does not look very big. Does it stop automatically when its bag or dirt chamber fills up?

The older ones were just sweepers. Have they added a vacuuming feature?

Problem for me is stairs. So if you have an Asimo that can wield a vac or carpet steamer, that would be great.

"Will the robots forget about all this when they take over? Or will they want payback?"-F.M.

Just like Battlestar Galactica! Now that you've got all my attention, where do they sell these little helpers? This is more exciting than pondering infidelity over in Cary's column.

I cannot wait to escape this cat/dog/kid mess so I can have more fun doing...fun stuff. Next week, automatic bed makers and instant 'up and ready for work' portals!

I have an old Discovery, and it actually works well in a flat with two large-ish, heavily-shedding cats. The secret is to run it almost daily. Which isn't a big deal, since I just have to push a button when I leave, then empty the tray when I get home.

If you roomba on a regular basis, stuff doesn't build up as much, even in the areas where it doesn't reach. An occasional sweep in those corners and all is well.

The cats have gotten used to it, and they were never as scared of it as they are of regular vacuums, for whatever reason. They stay generally out of its way, watching it with a sort of detached curiosity (if they pay it any attention at all).

I lust the new model, though. The flat is pretty much roomba-fied for the daily suck, but it would be nice if I didn't have to worry so much about cables lying around. And more grunt = good.