Reuters Blogs

Blogs navigation

Just another Blogs.reuters.com weblog

22:27 January 11th, 2007

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords

Posted by: Terri Coles
Tags: Uncategorized

There are a lot of electronic offerings at CES that aren’t grabbing center stage but are still garnering online interest — mostly because they’re a combination of odd and fascinating.

Apparently not content with the growing popularity of their Roomba and Scooba robots, iRobot launched a new product called iRobot Create. It looks like the floor-scrubbing Scooba, with the addition of ports that allow users to modify the bot by attaching extension to it. Add-ons can be purchased, but iRobot expects that people will also create their own, CNET News.com reported. So far, attachments that turn the robot into a sock-picker-upper or a hamster-ball car have been created.

If you’d prefer for your cute, round robots to stick to washing your floors, then Microbot has you covered. Their UBOT sweeps, vacuums and mops, and can run along UV sensitive tracks under your flooring; the company is installing them in every new South Korean home, Gizmodo reported. A Stateside launch for the product is planned.

ces_robot.jpgIn other robot news, Honda’s Asimo was demonstrated at CES on Tuesday. Recovering from the embarrassment of previous public appearances, an Engadget video shows that the humanoid robot runs and dances, and can now manage the stairs without tumbling. They grow up so quickly…

Takagi Industrial’s Fresh Seat toilet seat has been tasked with less glamorous automated jobs: washing, drying and deodorizing, specifically. It also closes the toilet seat automatically — perhaps solving an age-old debate for couples — and heats up. Gizmodo found that last feature essential: “Trust me, a nice warm toilet seat is like a hug for your butt on those cold winter mornings.”

Post Your Comment

House Rules:
  • We moderate all comments and will publish everything that advances the post directly or with relevant tangential information
  • We try not to publish comments that we think are offensive or appear to pass you off as another person, and we will be conservative if comments may be considered libelous information.