The way that the robotics market is going to grow, at least in the home, is that we'll have a number of different special purpose robots.
Colin AngleWe learned that very few people care how you accomplish something. Instead, these people care more about whether you create value for your end user.
Colin AngleWhen I was building robots in the early 1990s, the problems of voice recognition, image understanding, VOIP, even touchscreen technologies - these were robotics problems.
Colin AngleThe answer is navigation, manipulation, and implementation of more sophisticated intelligence. The idea that a robot will become more aware of its environment, that telling it to "go to the kitchen" means something - navigation and understanding of the environment is a robot problem. Those are the technological frontiers of the robotics industry.
Colin AngleWhen we built Roomba, we explicitly designed it to not have a face. We didn't want to think it was cute, we wanted people to take it seriously so we gave it more of an industrial look. People personified their Roomba anyway. Over 80 percent of people name their robot. We did nothing to encourage people to do that but they do it anyway.
Colin AngleAt 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.
Colin Angle