I think, people are generally willing to imagine robots of all shapes, as humanoid robots are not practical.

The utility of the robot needs to come first. It's business model over technology.

I was focused on building things from an early age. When I was about 3, our toilet broke, and my mother was ready to call the plumber. I told her I would fix it and asked her to get my Richard Scarry book 'How Things Work in Busytown.' Between the picture of a toilet and the text she read to me explaining how the parts worked, I fixed it.

In the end, robots do things that people can do. So there is a cost above which you can hire somebody to do it, and that bounds the opportunity.

When I was building robots in the early 1990s, the problems of voice recognition, image understanding, VOIP, even touchscreen technologies - these were robotics problems.

In the beginning of Roomba, we all took turns answering the support line. Once, a woman called and explained that her robot had a defective motor. I said, 'Send it back. We'll send you a new one.' She said, 'No - I'm not sending you Rosie.'

At the World Cup, there is a constant risk that you might find a bag or some object that has been left behind, and no one is quite sure what it is. To bring in a full bomb-disposal team for each item can be very time-consuming. The PackBot can go over rough terrain, climb stairs, pick things up, and also be operated from a safe distance.