The Robot Revolution May Finally Be Here

The PackBot, a bomb-retrieving robot used by the military, makes its way down an iRobot hallway.

Next product. It's unclear how many civilians are ready to buy robots. IRobot has managed to attract enthusiasts but in only 3 percent of U.S. homes. It may take 20 years to get 10 percent, warns Paul Coster, a JPMorgan equities analyst. Roomba may prove a passing fad, and robots for more sophisticated tasks may prove too difficult to mass produce. IRobot, in fact, stumbled in producing a mere upgrade to its vacuum. The company also has delayed its next product, the ConnectR, sort of a Roomba with a camera atop. It's intended to socially link, via the Internet, far-flung family or colleagues. They would control and communicate through the robot. But at $500, some analysts see another niche product.

Still, it's on a path robots may need to travel to popularity: becoming more teammate than tool. People more quickly embrace robots that communicate with human cues, says Jodi Forlizzi, who has studied robot-human interaction at Carnegie Mellon University.

A recent MIT study showed that an automated model in the shape of a human torso, capable of simple eye gestures and speech, was a better weight-loss coach than computer or paper programs. "We are so profoundly social as a species," says Cynthia Breazeal, who supervised the study. "There are simply technologies that can push our buttons."

Even the Roomba, a stripped-down platter designed to clean and not socialize, evokes surprising emotional responses. That it moves on its own is a distinct cue that we associate with purpose, Breazeal says.

Plus, there are Roomba's beeps and squeaks as it starts and stops. They add attitude to the tightly engineered machine. In fact, they might remind owners of R2D2, the personality-laden robot from Star Wars that also, by the way, inspired iRobot's Greiner to enter the field. Maybe, she says with a smile, those Roomba sounds were no accident.