Roomba owners should really shut their bots off before leaving the house and arming the alarm system. Here’s why. A Roomba in a Denmark home got all hopped up on dust and dirt and tripped the motion sensors. It was just jonesin’ to snort some debris while its owners were out on the town.
The alarm was tripped, and the authorities were automatically phoned. They arrived to see that the little bot had gorged itself in a shameless and lonely orgy of filth. Otherwise all was well.
They decided not to press charges as it had nothing to handcuff.
When you think about what a limited edition Wall-E Roomba should be, you probably picture a Roomba with those cute Wall-E eyes attached, Wall-E’s squar-ish body. Maybe add some voice effects. How awesome would it be to have a Wall-E Roomba? Count me in.
Turns out, not very awesome at all. It’s being sold in Japan and it amounts to no more then a crappy sticker attached on top. For the price of $850. That’s $550 more then what a standard 530 costs here in the U.S. That’s just lame.
For those who hate Hello Kitty, you’ll be happy to know that she now has a janitorial position cleaning the filth off your floors. Why in the hell we need yet another Hello Kitty item is beyond me, but if we must, at least she can get her paws dirty.
iRobot and Sanrio must have had a few drinks and a bright idea about how to open up to a new demographic. We can be thankful of two things: Only 500 units are made and it’s only available in Japan. It will cost roughly $810. Sadly, too expensive to buy on impulse and let it play in the road.
Since you’re a mix of the hairiest nationalities and you decided to shave off all your body hair for hydrodynamic drag reduction and one of your three huskies is getting chemo and your wife is balding, it’s time to consider the new Roomba. Three new models have been added to iRobot’s Roomba line; the 610 Professional Series, and the 532 and 562 Pet Series Robots.
The Professional Series is aimed at…professionals. It can go into “Max Mode” to clean very large rooms. The 610 is intended for big office spaces or high traffic areas. It has an extra large bin as well as an interchangeable extra bin.
The Pet Series bots have larger bins and special accessories to pick up more fur and dander than the previous models. Counter-rotating brushes let the Pet Series robots get deep down into your grimy, hairy carpet. The 532 can clean up to three rooms on one charge. The 562 has extra brushes, a longer charge, and can be programmed with a cleaning schedule; it is unquestionably a hair eating machine (not unlike that demonic Cabbage Patch doll from 1996).
The 532 and 562 cost $350 and $450 respectively. The 610 Professional is $600, and all three are available now from iRobot.
Mr. Pitful’s ode to the Roomba robot that’s cleaning up his entire life. His living room, kitchen, relationships, and even the deepest, darkest corners of his mind. Does it make you want to buy a new Roomba? I don’t know, but you’ll want to check out the other Mr. Pitful Band creations. With lyrics like “… the dirty dust balls of my mind…”, it’s catchy. It’s like if Tenacious D sang about robots.
Why? Because he can of course. Ron Tajima had some time, a Roomba, and a Wii Balance Board. Naturally he put them all together, threw in a Surfin’ USA track from the 1980’s, and now he can control the Roomba as if surfing.
“This is my third Roomba hacking,” Tajima says. “This surfin is safe, useful (it’s cleaning), and easy for nerds. Wii balance board is great!”
Cool stuff for sure. It oughtta get your nerd blood boiling and give you a reason to use your balance board.
In the video below, Readybot cleans the hell out of a living room and makes us fall in love with the idea of having one in our home. One cool feature is it’s onboard Roomba garage. It lowers the little guy and sets him free, then collects him up again when he’s finished. In the meantime, Readybot is still cleaning. We want one NOW! Read the rest of this entry »
We like to think that the Roomba is something special where robotics are concerned. n many respects it is. But as usual, the Japanese are quite capable of handing us or ass. Take this bot for instance. B1 Autotec is a company in Japan that specializes in home cleaning robots. They’ve announced the Aqua Mover, a pool cleaning robot. Well unlike its American counterpart, it’s not battery powered and draws powers from the mains. Plus, it has a CCD camera that transmits video to it’s operator who controls the cleaner bot using a control box. It’s water resistant up to 15 meters and has lights in case you want to clean your pool at night. It will clean up to 120 square meters in an hour. Pricing and availability unknown. The point is this: Imagine how good this would clean your carpet. Video below. Read the rest of this entry »
iRobot, maker of the Packbot and the Roomba vacuum cleaners, was awarded a contract by the Pentagon to build a robot that can fit under doors and through other small openings. MIT and Harvard will work with iRobot on what they’re calling the Chembots project, which is run by DARPA.
“During military operations it can be important to gain covert access to denied or hostile space. Unmanned platforms such as mechanical robots are of limited effectiveness if the only available points of entry are small openings,” Mitchell Zakin, the Darpa program manager says. “We believe that a new class of soft, flexible, meso-scale mobile objects that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their dimensions to perform various tasks will be quite valuable in many missions.”
In other words, morphing shapeshifting nightmares that can enter your mouth and sing a sweet goodbye lullaby to your soul.
Roomba owners should really shut their bots off before leaving the house and arming the alarm system. Here’s why. A Roomba in a Denmark home got all hopped up on dust and dirt and tripped the motion sensors. It was just jonesin’ to snort some debris while its owners were out on the town. 
Since you’re a mix of the hairiest nationalities and you decided to shave off all your body hair for hydrodynamic drag reduction and one of your three huskies is getting chemo and your wife is balding, it’s time to consider the new Roomba. Three new models have been added to iRobot’s Roomba line; the 610 Professional Series, and the 532 and 562 Pet Series Robots.
