iRobot Makes First Version of T-1000 or Number Six—We Will All Die Anyway

Gizmodo's bullpen five minutes ago. Me: "Holy f*ck. Check this." Matt: "We're all dead." Me: "We're so f*cked." Wilson: "Soft robotics. That's a scary phrase." Jason: "You mean a sexy phrase. Mmmm. Soft robots." Wilson: "Now, jamming skin... More »

Creepy: iRobot's "My Real Baby"

Meet the offspring of iRobot, and Transformers creator Hasbro. No, really. Back in 2000, the two companies teamed up on a project to create a baby doll called "My Real Baby" that had emotionally expressive animatronic facial expressions. More »

iRobot Patents Call For Potty-Trained Roomba

The Roomba autonomous vacuum / kitten transportation vehicle may be able to go potty all by itself like its cuddly counterparts if these patent applications from iRobot ever come to fruition. More »

Roomba Patent Solves Pesky Corner-Cleaning Problem With Simple Geometry

Roombas have evolved over the years into a fairlyimpressive product, except when it comes to corners. Apparently bothered by this, iRobot's engineers have patented a Roomba with a corner specialty. The secret trick: it's square. More »

Punk iRobot Tags Floors With Its Powder Graffiti

This is what happens when a Roomba gets kicked around by abusive parents—it rebels against society, joins a gang and vandalizes our communities. More »

Hamster-Controlled Roomba Lets Your Hamster Decide What Gets Cleaned

Sure, a Roomba will methodically and accurately clean your floors, but wouldn't it be more fun to let chaos reign by throwing the controls of your robotic vacuum over to a hamster? More »

Unreal Snooping Bot Can Grow from 25 Inches to 20 Feet

So weird. This iRobot Packbot has a Situational Awareness Mast built-in, a surveillance system which can grow from 25 inches to 20 feet lifting 200 pounds, on its top configuration. The mechanism is very ingenious:

Dealzmodo: Buy 2 Get 1 Free for Three-Pronged iRobot House Cleaning Team

iRobot is offering up a few new combo discounts on several of their dutiful house-cleaning 'bots. If you're buying a Roomba 580 vacuum and Scooba 380 floor-mopper tandem for around $1,000 total, they'll throw in either a Dirt Dog heavy-duty shop-vac bot or a Looj gutter cleaner for free. Both of those go for around $130 on their own. Ultrasonic whistle for controlling your new robo-brigade not included. [iRobot Store via CNET]

Robots of the Future Will Show Empathy, Be Good Listeners

European researchers are developing a software that will give robots the power to learn when a person is sad, happy or angry. The Feelix Growing project is putting together simple robots that can detect different parameters—facial expressions, voice and proximity—to determine emotional states. The aim of the project is to develop a robot that can serve humans with special needs, such as the ill and the elderly. Using adaptable neural networks, the robot can learn the correct way to respond to people's emotions from experience. More »

iRobot Patent Filing Hints at Lawn Mowing Robot Update

The folks behind the Roomba robot vacuum appear to have another robotic helper up their sleeves. In this case, it's of the lawn mowing variety, but the final design is anything but final if the wide variety of shapes, configurations and features are any indication. A lawn-mowing Roomba-like robot... Lawmba? Loomba? Mowba. More »

iPhone App Runs iRobot's Military Packbot

While many of us may ooh and ahh at the new iPhone apps reaching the consumer level, a pair from the University of South Florida has coded a native iPhone application that can operate iRobot's Packbot with full streaming POV video. Syncing with the Packbot over Wi-Fi, the iPhone's accelerometers allow panning and zooming while the touchscreen controls the Packbot's movement. But don't take our word for it. Check out the clip: More »

"Crowd Control" iRobot Fires Up to a Million Rounds a Minute

You remember that gun that electronically fires up to a million rounds a minute (theoretically) by Metal Storm? They're strapping them to iRobot's X700 to create a serious killing machine with the flexibility of firing anything from explosive rounds to "less-lethal" ones, making it suitable for urban assaults, "border patrol," "crowd control" or my personal favorite, defense against a zombie apocalypse. [Danger Room]

Wiimote, iPhone are New Tools of War

David Bruemmer and Douglas Few, engineers at the US Department of Energy's Idaho National Lab in Idaho Falls, have put together an unlikely use for the Wiimote—they've hacked the remote so it can control a bomb-disposing, landmine-detecting, machine gun-carrying robot. More »

Robot Yoga is Geeky Zen

As the winner of the U.S. Army's $286 million "unmanned surge" competition, the PacBot 510 with FasTac Kit designed by iRobot will soon be in charge of protecting the lives of our soldiers on the battlefield. A noble occupation for sure, but it may have missed its calling as a master yoga instructor. Check out some of the poses iRobot engineer John Souliere managed to get this thing into during a demo with Wired. [iRobot and Wired]

Personal Home Robot Lands Nerd $5,000 in iRobot Contest

It may look like a [Star Wars reference omitted] with a very erect [Star Wars reference omitted], but the Personal Home Robot is actually designed for use in this galaxy. Danh Trinh of Towson, Md. took home a $5,000 contest prize from iRobot for building the cute but boringly named PHR on the iRobot Create platform. Made up of parts from all over, it appears to contain a Compaq iPaq, a wireless access point from Buffalo and a Logitech QuickCam. It can water plants, control lights and appliances, play music and remind owners to take their medication. It does not [Star Wars reference omitted], but neither do you. [Instructables] More »

New iRobot Warrior X700 Carries Big Payloads and Big Guns

When we last checked in with iRobot's Warrior, it was armless, pokey, weak and not killtastic. Their latest model, the Warrior X700, is the opposite of all of that, with plans for the urban warfare front: It sports a robo-arm that lifts 150 pounds, will tread a four-minute mile, lugs up to 500 pounds and can terminate with extreme prejudice semi-autonomously. It can deploy machine guns or 40mm explosive rounds, with one variant sporting an electronic firing system utilizing a four-pack of small barrels that fire 16 rounds a second with an 800-meter range. At this rate, a real-life robot-controlled Metal Slug is totally on its way by 2028. [Army Times via Danger Room]

iRobot Looj Gutter Cleaner Video Is Bob Vila Porn

Check out the superslo-mo guttercam as the lil green iRobot Looj clears away real-life sludge and debris. The best part of the video may be the Looj holster, allegedly designed so you can safely ascend and descend ladders, but really there to make you look like some kind of space cowboy. [iRobot]

iRobot Looj Gutter Cleaner and ConnectR Webcam Robots Announced

As we saw in our coverage of the iRobot Digital Life Event, the iRobot Looj and iRobot ConnectR were just announced. The Looj, that weird gutter cleaner we saw before, will cost $99. The iRobot ConnectR, is a "virtual visiting robot," which means it has a webcam and a mic for mobile teleconferencing; it will cost $500. The latter can be driven around like an R2-D2 so you can get in touch with other people around the office without actually getting up to. [iRobot]

First iRobot Roomba 560 Video

More »

Mod-Friendly 5th Gen iRobot Roomba - First Vacuum

Roomba is among the most successful consumer robots ever made, having sold well over 2 million units. And iRobot's newly released 500 series is the first major revamp of the floorvac line since 2004. Nearly everything about the bot has been changed or improved; it's stronger, quieter, smarter and will last five times longer than its predecessor. A full report on the Roomba 560's anti-tangling technology, voice module, and RF "Virtual Wall Lighthouses" is just after the jump. More »

The Crash of the Flying PackBot

More »

What Will iRobot's Next Creations Be?

iRobot, of Roomba fame has come out of the woodwork and announced that they will be unveiling two new consumer robots this holiday season that will not be floor cleaning robots. Helen Greiner, co-founder of iRobot said "We are going to launch them from our Web space, and they are not floor-cleaning robots. They are different types of robots with mechanical features." So, what do you folks think? They are going to be consumer robots that don't clean. More »

Boeing and iRobot Building a Next-Gen Reconnaissance Robot

The folks at Boeing and iRobot are joining forces to build a lighter, faster and smarter version of iRobot's Packbot. The new SUVG Early will be used for bomb disposal and disaster relief operations. More »

iRobot's New Bots Clean Your Pool, Bring You Mai Tais

iRobot's new pool-cleaning bots make me wish I had a pool. Both the Verro 300 and Verro 600 can vacuum up leaves, algae and bacteria from your pool, but what makes them extra cool is that they can do all of this while making sure the chemicals in your pool are distributed properly and water temperature is even. Not to mention they can climb up and down your pool's stairs. More »

Dyson Secretly Creating Robot Vacuum

iRobot's Roomba is about to get a little competition from the folks at Dyson. Rumor has it that Dyson is recruiting roboticists who can help create a robotic vacuum with autopilot and mapping capabilities, the latter feature being something the Roomba lacks (it relies on bump sensors for direction). More »

1-Year Review with Scooba: Thumbs Down

I like Joel's 1-year review of the Scooba — Roomba's wash and dry mopping bot. For cleaning his Brooklyn pad, he finds the charging, refilling of cleaning fluids, initial outlay of $200, and maintenance of the bot to be more work and expense than it's worth. Mopping up by bucket and mop and human-being is still the way to go. Unless you have a thing for robots in French Maid costumes, that is. More »

iRobot's Bomb-disposing PackBot Heads Out to War

The folks at iRobot (yeah, the same guys that make the Roomba) are ready to send their new PackBot 510 out to battle. The PackBot is a bomb-disposing robot used out in the field where it's too dangerous for soldiers to maneuver. The new PackBot 510 is 30% faster and stronger than its predecessor. It's also easier to control. So easy that its hand controller could double for your 360 controller. We're still waiting for the Wiimote-controlled version, however. – Louis Ramirez More »

Dealzmodo: iRobot Roomba Discovery SE, $150

Woot is packing up their boxes and moving to a bigger facility and in their packing they found thousands of iRobot Roomba Discovery SE vacuuming robots that need a home. The Roomba is a dirt sweeping robot that can also be modded like crazy. The Discovery SE comes with all over the accessories like virtual walls, charging station, remote and more. It also retails for $299ish, so this is a pretty damn good deal for $150. –Travis Hudson More »

Adam Frucci's Robo-humpty Dance, And Four Other CES Bots In Motion

•iRobot Create bot grabs a soda, is taken for a drive with and Xbox controller More »