Roomba Review, and Dancing Robots

"It Might Not Be the Robot We Want, But It's the Robot We Deserve"
Roberto Baldwin, product review, Wired (August 13, 2012)

"Along with the zombie apocalypse, the robot uprising is a real fear among the people that populate the internet. Blame it on Terminator if you want, but in reality, the mass-produced robots that have entered our homes have yet to come close to even the comically inept Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons.

"Instead of autonomous robots running our households and raising our children, we have Roomba. The utility robot from iRobot has been sweeping our floors for 10 years, and while the basic task it performs has remained the same, the famous vacuuming disk has gotten smarter. Not smart enough to take over the world, or even the family room, but smart enough to keep the floors clean. Or at least clean-ish.

"The new Roomba 790 series is the latest vacuum out of iRobot. The base functionality of the device is better than previous versions - in my testing, the 790 gathered more dirt and animal hair than my older Roomba ever did...."

Maybe some of "the people that populate the internet" really do fear "the robot uprising." Maybe they're the same folks who kept seeing Elvis, back in 'the good old days.' Then again, maybe not.

What the Lemming is fairly certain about is that the Roomba series of robots has become part of many American households: not as a toy, but as a (slightly) intelligent household appliance.

It's the Lemming's opinion that seriously-intelligent robots are more likely to have nice, polite, deferential personalities like Star Wars' C3PO. Maybe they'll be good dancers, too:

"Dancing Japanese Robots"

pongielan08, YouTube (December 29, 2005)
video, 3:26

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• "Nine Decades of Robots Turning on Their Masters"
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• "Meet Fenway the Robot, Hospital Helper"
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• "Robovie-II and Robovie-IV: Robot Assistants for Store and Office"
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• "Japanese Dwarf Flying Squirrels: And Dancing Robots"
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