Brains, Bots and Bodies

What has become a milestone in the evolutionary timeline of robotic market development, iRobot sued its former competitor Robotic FX to death last year.  At the center of the battle was the Robotic FX version of a robot called The Negotiator which allegedly violated U.S. Patents 6,263,989 and 6,431,296 that relate to robot platform and [...]

iRobot Negotiator Provides a Cost-Effective, Basic Reconnaissance Robot to Public Safety Organizations
Bedford, Mass., August 6, 2008 – iRobot Corp. (Nasdaq: IRBT) today announced the introduction of the iRobot Negotiator, a low-cost tactical robot designed to meet the basic reconnaissance needs of public safety professionals.
After the success of the company’s iRobot PackBot 510, iRobot heard from [...]

If iRobot is a bellwether for the future of personal robotics, then the market is not just hype.  iRobot’s second quarter revenue increased 43% over the same time last year with profits totaling $16.5M, or about 24% of Q2’s $67.2M revenue.
“In the second quarter we achieved our 16th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth despite [...]

SciVestor spoke with Colin Angle, co-founder and CEO of iRobot Corporation. We asked him about how iRobot will change the world, the importance of Moore’s Law, and why the business community should be interested. We also got his take on the state of the emerging robotics industry.

Blogging from RoboBusiness in Pittsburgh this week. Much to my disappointment, the Convention Center does not have wireless access, so blog postings are coming out when possible.
Colin Angle, Co Founder and CEO of iRobot spent 45 minutes romping through robotics market business concepts. He presented 21 (I only captured 20 for some reason) [...]

Selling products to businesses is a relatively quantifiable endeavor. A business customer calculates the cost of his investment and compares it to his projected increased revenue. If his revenue exceeds his cost then the purchase is deemed to have been worth the investment. The higher and sooner the return, the better the investment. [...]

When I discovered Joel Garreau’s article Bots on the Ground, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. He described a scenario where a new kind of military robot was being demonstrated to an Army colonel. The robot was long and segmented with many legs and designed to step on and trigger land mines. It was [...]

It looks like Meccano woke up.
At the Digital Life show in New York last week, the Spykee demo guys were seen and heard discussing the value of being able to conduct business in New York while “on your computer in Paris.” Clearly, most eight-year-old boys aren’t going to find this next-generation concept of telecommuting as [...]

Today at Digital Life, iRobot unveiled its new “Virtual Visiting Robot” named ConnectR (pronounced “connector”). iRobot is positioning this robot squarely in the telepresence market making value statements very similar to those we wrote about several weeks ago. Unlike the marketeers at Erector (via Meccano), iRobot is not targeting children ages eight and [...]

Several days ago we learned that Microsoft is creating a technical alliance with Japan robot player Tmsuk (pronounced “tim suck”) to establish a standard robotics platform. It represents the first time a strategic relationship has been established between a major software platform maker and a robot manufacturer. At stake is the effort to bring [...]