Floor Vacuum Robot for $200

abhikhurana writes "MSNBC is running a review of Roomba, supposedly the first intelligent 'floor vac', as in a cross between vacuum cleaner and a robot. I think its especially suited for lazy bums like me. Just let it loose, sitback and enjoy. There is also a video of how it cleans the floors, which requires windows media player (what else?) to watch it. It seems that the robo cleaner can indeed do that job for which it has been designed. A related article on Techreview has slightly more details about how it works. There is also a website exclusively for Roomba."

First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet that robot really "sucks"

Ahahahahaha.

Vacuum?

[Trusty Penfold]

Are they crazy?!? Everyone knows that nature abhors a vacuum. When a vacuum and normal matter meet there's an enormous explosion. Or implosion. Or something.

meoooooow!

[Tablizer]

Fluffy? Where are you Fluffy?

Runaway

[egg troll]

This is the first link in a chain of events that will eventually have Gene Simmons chasing me across a skyscraper with a swarm of robotic spiders!

Maybe I'll get one of these things so I can...

[Scratch-O-Matic]

sit back and chat on my video phone.

Heh..

[NanoGator]

Hey! It's R2-D2's cousin: SUX-2BU.

Okay, dumb joke, but it beats the inevitable "That robot sucks!" jokes.

Goal

[limekiller4]

You know the dot-bomb is rebounding when an MIT startups goal is to suck.

IMAGINE!

[Anonymous Coward]

A Clawhammer Cluster Of These !!!

hopefully the researchers will figure out....

[edrugtrader]

.... why 65% of americas youth are overweight.

Beasties

[anicklin]

I can't imagine how clean it will get a room when the dogs and cats are chasing after it and knocking them around. Maybe you have to up the room size in order to compensate.

Then again, a $200 interactive cat toy might be a good thing, if they never get tired of it like every other one they get. :-)

Wonder how the cats are going to react to this?

[Chastitina]

Maybe it's dog-friendly, but at 7.5 pounds how is it going to hold up to the teething Labrador next door?

Sounds like a lot of fun for when the cats misbehave, though.

"Here kitty kitty kitty..."

The Fools!

[foistboinder]

Don't they realize the danger?

According to Professor Frink:

Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok, in an orgy of blood and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving.

That's bullshit..

[grub]

$200 ?!
I paid $6,000 (US) for my RealDoll and it can't move at all, let alone vacuum the floor.

Step one

[Tablizer]

But first something has to clean up all the socks, underwear, pizza boxes, AOL disks, rejection notices, bannana peels, etc. that are all over the floor. This is the hard part.

Re:hopefully the researchers will figure out....

[egg troll]

.... why 65% of americas youth are overweight.

Because the research was based on a Slashdot poll! I mean have you seen Cowboy Neal?

Re:That's bullshit..

[egg troll]

$200 ?!

I paid $6,000 (US) for my RealDoll and it can't move at all, let alone vacuum the floor.

But have you tried fucking the vacuum?

heh

[papasui]

Johnny 5 IS ALIVE!

Re:Let's go back in time to the 1980's....

[Anonymous Coward]

Robots were going to do EVERYTHING in the 70's and 80's.

That's right, somewhere, somebody probably has a business plan from 1971 that says:

1. Build robots
2. ?????
3. Profit!

Nit-pick

[Overt Coward]

from the to-lazy-to-stand dept.

And, apparently, from the too-lazy-to-spell department, too...

Pervert!

[slagdogg]

I also took Roomba home with me to see how it would do in a somewhat more sedate setting. Once again, Roomba did its thing with a minimum of noise or fuss.

Hmmm ... I don't see any mention of what exactly "its thing" was ... ewww.

Floor VAX?

[ari_j]

Is it running on DEC hardware?

Real man's challenge

[shrikel]

I can see it now:

Geeks now have a vacuum cleaner web server!

First one to run apache/linux on it wins.

come on now

[RedWolves2]

My rugs are vacuumed everyday before I get home...That is why one gets married isn't it?

Re:The Fools!

[unicron]

Theme park owner: "Well how long do we have?"

Professor Frink: "According to my calculations, the robots will not turn on us for at least 72 hours."

[Robot sits up on the table and starts to choke a scientist.]

Professor Frink: "Oh, forgot to carry the Y."

Asimov would have loved the company name...

[douglips]

iRobot [irobot.com].

I'm just waiting....

[SensitiveMale]

for someone to say that this is too expensive and that he built the EXACT same thing with a 486/25, and ATi AIW video card, wireless networking, and an old 15" monitor he had in the garage.

And just a little script in Perl.

Another Vacuum story?

[teamhasnoi]

Slashdot: News for Nerds. Things that Suck.

(doan hit me ;)

not terribly useful

[WhiteChocolate42]

Well, one of these would only come in handy if I actually vacuumed in the first place. Now, make me a robot that posts to slashdot, drinks mountain dew and takes naps, and you've got yourself a customer! Laser eye-beams probably wouldn't hurt either. http://www.geocities.com/robot_president/quotes.ht ml

Re:Good idea, but...

[huh_]

So you only get the floor mostly clean. Seems like it could use some more work...

Well, to me, mostly clean is much better than the horrible mess I have now.
You can eat off my floors, but not because they are that sanitary, but because they have all that food on them.

Re:Why is it...

[worthb]

I want my vacuuming to be sort of like setting up a maintainance cron job to run at 3 AM.

I don't know about you but if that thing started running in my house at 3 AM it would end up out the window.

Re:It's too slow

[dubiousmike]

I think the manufacturer figures you are going to leave your house at some point or another.

silly manufacturer

:P

Re:The Fools!

[miTTio]

Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok, in an orgy of blood and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving.

Do you have Old Glory Robot Insurance [robotcombat.com]?

Hmmm....

[dubiousmike]

Can Roomba vacuum the lint from my belly button?

:P

Scrubbing bubbles

[ACNeal]

Get those scribbing bubbles by Dow.

all the adds show them as autonomous. You just apply them to the bathroom surface, and they zoom around like they were at a 1970's skate park. According to the ads, they do a pretty good job to.

I always wondered why they didn't use these as the basis for nano-technology.

Re:This is Rodney Brooks' company.

[Anonymous Coward]

"This guy is to robot-geeks what RMS is to Open-Source."

Annoying?

Re:Real man's challenge

[The J Kid]

That's nothing...
Imagine a whole beow...

*/me tears like heck to save skin*

Re:Their new robots

[NutMan]

In the Friendly Robotics FAQ [friendlymachines.com], they have some interesting robots in the works:

Q: Are any new robotic products coming to the market soon?
A:Yes, our R&D is currently developing other household products that will eliminate spending time on mundane choirs.

Are they targeting the Vienna Choir Boys or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Either way it seems like this is kind of a small market.

...And space comedy movies!

[Fig, formerly A.C.]

I want MegaMaid.

"She's gone from suck...to blow!"

Re:Let's go back in time to the 1980's....

[captainstupid]

Instead of robots, we got helper monkies.

They can do way more useful stuff than robots...
Steal doughnuts from the donut shop by stringing multiple doughnuts on their tail and arms.

They aren't forced to abide by those crazy moral laws that are supposed to be built into robots.

I have something like this.

[spudwiser]

It's called a cat. It roams around the house eating anything on the floor and depositing it in a box that needs to be emptied every few days. It was even free!

Screw the vacuuming...

[docbrown42]

Bring on the sexbots [imdb.com].

Which would you rather spend $200 bucks on?

more than one of them in a house???

[Sabalon]

Cause a beowulf cluster of these would really suck!

Re:Except the batteries don't last long enough

[SerpentMage]

Gee whiz then I would need two of these gadgets. Our house measures without the garage and closets about 3500 square feet. Actually that kind of sucks since the vacuum cleaner would be running constantly.

My question though is what about the dog factor. I have English Bulldogs that consider vaccuum cleaners the enemy...