About time... (Score: 1) by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-07-21 19:15 (#2M0) With all the emphasis they get in sci-fi movies and tv shows, I really thought we'd have more robots by now. But as a marketable product, there just aren't that many things that they can actually do today.Robotic maid? Not quite there yet - unless you count Roomba. Unfortunately, the Roomba products haven't progressed at all. They are the same designs from 15 years ago with hardly any computational or mechanical advances. If they followed the same Moore's Law curve as the rest of the computer industry, they should have been bipedal androids that can walk and talk by now. Instead, they are the same dumb "Drive forward until you hit something, then backup, take a slight turn, and try again" that they have always been. Although the company claims to have sold over 10 million of the devices, they have almost nothing to show for it.Maybe Intel can shake things up a little with their Jimmy robot. Re: About time... (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2014-07-21 21:19 (#2M1) iRobot went where the money is: defense robots. They've repurposed those same bots into hazmat, security, and disaster response as well. Home user sales aren't worth enough for them to put the resources into.There are a lot of companies doing cool things with robots, but the publicity isn't there because they aren't trying to sell to the average person.
Re: About time... (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2014-07-21 21:19 (#2M1) iRobot went where the money is: defense robots. They've repurposed those same bots into hazmat, security, and disaster response as well. Home user sales aren't worth enough for them to put the resources into.There are a lot of companies doing cool things with robots, but the publicity isn't there because they aren't trying to sell to the average person.