The Christmas season is upon us, and it’s time to whip up your gift lists. Why not put a little robot love on there? Here’s some great suggestions for robotic gifts. We’ve featured 10 great products that will make excellent gift ideas for your robot loving friend or relative.

LEGO Mindstorms NXT

I wonder if LEGO fully understood what they were getting into when they first released their “Robotics Invention System”, or “RIS” in 1998? Now, two revisions later we have the LEGO Mindstorms NXT system, which is about as perfect of a product as you can imagine. Involving a tight-knit team of LEGO and robotics enthusiasts, LEGO developed NXT from the ground up and surprised the public with their new system in 2006. The NXT system supports over 40 different programming languages, and supports a wide range of additional sensors created by 3rd parties. The kit comes with 3 motors (with feedback), 4 different sensors, and 571 pieces. You can check out some of the fabulous NXT creations over at The NXT Step Blog.

Mindstorms NXT retails for $250 USD.

Buy LEGO Mindstorms NXT from Amazon or Trossen Robotics.

Wall-E RC Toy and DVD

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Pixar is known for creating beautiful, heartwarming, and sophisticated animated films that appeal to both children and adults. Their latest masterpiece is the story of Wall-E, a trash robot stranded and alone on Earth.

One of the more interesting product tie-ins is the U Command Wall-E “interactive robot” which uses an IR remote for control and can be programming with hundreds of different actions and combinations. This may be ripe for hardware hacking and is extremely cute, to boot.

Of course, if you’re looking for something a little less costly, the 3 disk Special Edition of Wall-E on DVD would make an excellent gift for your robot loving friends.

Buy U Command Wall-E from Amazon.com.

Buy 3 Disk Special Edition Wall-E from Amazon.com.

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The US Army has decided to move it’s Robotics Systems Joint Project Office to Warren, MI, outside of Detroit. In response to this, many large robotics companies are following suit and opening offices in the area. The office is currently hiring engineers and designers to create robots to do “dull, dirty or dangerous” jobs.

Robot ground vehicles are said to be the main focus and officials say that should produce about 100 new jobs by next year and maybe double that in the future. Which future is still in question, though. Already, money is flowing into local universities for robotics research and iRobot, Foster Miller, and QuinetiQ are looking to open local branches.

So, is robotics the hot new industry for Southern Michigan? It sure looks like they could use a few new ideas.

 

In what is pretty stunning news to me, iRobot has purchased Nekton Research for $10 million USD. The reason this is so stunning, is because Nekton is 30min down the road from me, and I’ve interviewed there! Nekton is a small business located in Durham North Carolina and specializes in underwater robots. You can see one of their robots, the Transphibian, operating after the jump. Up till this point Nekton has based it’s business on government research contracts and hasn’t done any large scale product sales - this looks to change. iRobot says they plan on moving their “Maritime Programs office” to the Raleigh-Durham area. Eventually iRobot plans to have all their underwater research and development happen at this location. This will be where the Seaglider program eventually moves to.

iRobot has updated their website to reflect the new acquisition and features the Seaglider, Ranger, Transphibian, and “High Speed UUV“. I’m looking forward to see what exciting things will pop out of the water, so to speak.

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I saw this video linked from our friends at robots.net. “Roomba song,” I say. “It’s probably bad, but I’ll give it a shot.” Well folks, I was wrong. Great song. Great voice. Great robot. Check it out.

Thorn, over at Robot Stock News, recently stumbled upon some very interesting patent filings from iRobot that may be a new lawnmower. The 84 page filing has several potential designs for robotic lawnmowers listed - electric, gasoline, Roomba-like, different cutting systems, navigation systems, etc.

Apparently iRobot is considering several different barrier systems, including the standard “electric fence” type system, and a more exotic solar-powered boundary marker system. Also being considered is the use of GPS, “lawn learning” capabilites, clipping collection, and more.

The arrival of a robotic lawnmower (Mowba? Lawnba? Mowr?) has long been rumored, but this news definitely pushes the possibility into the “highly likely” category. One key question is what will the price point be?

Robot Stock News has more details. You can also read the full patent filing online here.

The Automaton blog is reporting the NPR featured robots on its weekly "Science Friday" talk show.

According to Automaton,



I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, so let me know what you think.

 

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You may remember our posts on the sad plight of iRobot, who had accused their ex-employee, Jameel Ahed, of stealing their design, only to have the US Military award a whopping $280 million dollar contract to said ex-employee, and rejecting iRobot. Oh the injustice!

Weep no more, fellow shareholders and Roomba lovers, because justice has been served! Unfortunately, the price of that justice was a cool $2.9million dollars. But, nobody said good ol’ Lex Rex came cheap.

In addition to the judges in both lawsuits rulling in favor of iRobot - one ruling that Robotic FX had infringed iRobot’s patent, and the other ruling that, Robotic FX stole proprietary information - Robotic FX will now be dissolved and its assets given to iRobot as payment.



In response to the news, the US DoD awarded iRobot the $280 million dollar contract that was previously awarded to Robotic FX. While iRobot’s stock price has a long way to go from the $24 high it was before all of these events transpired, the future is looking much brighter.



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Robotic FX manufactures a tactical robot for military operations. It can be equipped for hazmat and EOD operations. The Negotiator and its bigger brother, the Negotiator 6X, are water resistant, can climb stairs, and weigh around 20lbs and 46lbs, respectively. Robotic FX has also recently won a $280 million USD contract with the US Army to ship 3,000 robots to the Middle East for Army operations.

There’s one slight problem though - iRobot is accusing Robotic FX of stealing designs for iRobot’s PackBot system, and of patent infringement. Not only did Robotic FX’s president, Jameel Ahed, formerly work at iRobot and access to technical information on the PackBot, but its hard to deny the amazing similarites between the two designs - especially manipulator arm and the patented front “flipper” design of the PackBot.

According to Defense News,

And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, according to this Boston Globe article, “iRobot’s suit alleges that one day after his resignation [from iRobot in June 2002], Ahed used his
still-active iRobot e-mail account to send confidential iRobot files to
a Robotic FX address.”

Also,

The suit also alleges that a court-ordered search of Hill’s aparement revealed a laptop, owned by Ahed, concealed under her bed running an eraser program - unfortunately, the program had done its job before the police were able to locate it.

All this said, I wonder if Robotic FX will have their hands full dealing with a major lawsuit and delivering 3,000 robots to the US Army.

Looks like Robotic FX may need one heck of a “negotiator” to get out of this one. May justice be done.

More info at Xconomy and Robot Stock News.

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In what was a stunning blow to iRobot and its investors, the US Army rejected the company in a high-stakes big for a large order of bomb-detection and tactical robots (Forbes story here). iRobot, the favorite to win the bidding, offered its PackBot robots as the product of choice to meet the demand for 3,000 robots the military issued on July 17th.

Instead, the winner was Robotic FX of Alsip, IL - a company that iRobot is currently suing for patent infringement and theft of proprietary designs (more on this in later posts). And while, "iRobot …  has delivered more than 1,000 IED and cave-clearing, remote-controlled PackBots to the Army and Marine Corps since 2002", it’s not entirely clear why the Army chose Robotic FX’s systems over iRobot’s. The best guess seems to revolve around price. According to Thorn at Robot Stock News, "The contract appears to be about $93,000 per robot, while iRobot’s PackBots have generally been in the $120K-$150K range."

Jameel Ahed, the president of Robotic FX, said, "This procurement was competed on a two-step technically acceptable, low price basis and we are very excited to have won. We look forward to producing our high-quality, easy-to-operate robots for our soldiers.”

Joe Dyer, head of iRobots government division is quoted as saying, 
The Army has since then issued a statement in Robotic FX’s defense, citing the possibility of putting soliders in harm’s way if Robotic FX is prevented (by the courts) from meeting the contract.

You can find more detailed coverage of iRobots loss and the unfolding lawsuit at Robot Stock News.

The internet is abuzz with some recent news on iRobot that Engadget uncovered - apparently iRobot’s latest venture will be a gutter cleaning robot named “Looj ” (no, not this kind). The FCC documents that Engadget discovered have since then been made private until October 13th.

The robot is supposed to be remote controlled and has a flipper to send debris out of the gutters. It has apparently has a belt clip to allow you to safely scale a ladder with both hands free.

One of the questions that seems to come up frequently is how this ‘bot will turn corners. It’s also not clear whether iRobot will be targeting this product to consumers or to larger contractors or business that specialize in gutters.

What do you think?

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Lookie! Lookie! We got the guy at the iRobot booth to give us a sneak peek at the latest from iRobot, the Scooba! Check out the video below the fold (click Read More).

The going price for the Scooba will be $399.


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Another main theme of the talks on day 1 was the business development and opportunities in robotics.

 

The first speaker in this series was Neena Buck from Strategy Analytics who talked about commercial opportunities and constraints for mobile robotics. Buck started off by showing how the US has been gearing all robotics research toward defense and aerospace robots while the Far East has been focused on developing more social purpose biped and humanoid robots. She then used this difference to explain the status of the current robotics businesses: consisting of “soup-to-nuts” robot manufacturers, component suppliers, hobbyist kits and a lot of hopefuls who are either hobbyists or educators.

Coming from a non-robotics background, she complained how robotic companies never: understand the consumer’s needs, understand the price the consumer is willing to pay, understand the quality of product the customer expects and  understand the benefits of branding and other marketing strategies. She then used this to illustrate how iRobot broke the trend with the roomba and how that created a huge success.

Her “next big app” ideas were to partner up with a manufacturer of whatever existing non-automated device that you are automating or to position yourself as a part of the supply chain connecting component vendors and developers.

 

Louis Ross from Global Emerging Technology Institute (GETI) talked next about the services offered by GETI. GETI focuses on researching research groups around the globe in the field of MEMS and nanotechnology and then creating collaborations between their technologies to bring out new MEMS products for OEM’s and for commercial applications using MEMS. I talked to Ross and Miwako Waga, their Managing director in the Japan office, after the talk and they were both interested in being contacted to find out about getting access to MEMS and nanotechnology developments in the Far East.

The biggest attraction in this series for the day was the talk by Lance Ulanoff from PCMag.com. Since the RoboBusiness conference in Cambridge, MA, I’ve heard him request to retire the term ‘robot’ to save the robotics industry. Today I got to hear why. From the perspective of a consumer electronics/application robot, it made sense how the term robot implies a frightening change. And that is exactly what iRobot did when they first introduced the roomba. However, it is hard to ignore how the whole situation is analogous to how the term “PC” was thought of around about 30 years ago. Will history repeat itself and prove Ulanoff wrong? Will we lose the hobbyist robotics in the process?

The last speaker was Michael Chester from International Marketing\r\nConsultants who talked about how to set up a business, how to get funding, how\r\nto market it and finally, how to exit. Louis Ross from Global Emerging Technology Institute (GETI) talked next about the services offered by GETI. GETI focuses on researching research groups around the globe in the field of MEMS and nanotechnology and then creating collaborations between their technologies to bring out new MEMS products for OEM’s and for commercial applications using MEMS. I talked to Ross and Miwako Waga, their Managing director in the Japan office, after the talk and they were both interested in being contacted to find out about getting access to MEMS and nanotechnology developments in the Far East.

 

The biggest attraction in this series for the day was the talk by Lance Ulanoff from PCMag.com. Since the RoboBusiness conference in Cambridge, MA, I’ve heard him request to retire the term “robot” to save the robotics industry. Today I got to hear why. From the perspective of a consumer electronics/application robot, it made sense how the term robot implies a frightening change. And that is exactly what iRobot did when they first introduced the roomba. However, it is hard to ignore how the whole situation is analogous to how the term “PC” was through around about 30 years ago. Will history repeat itself and prove Ulanoff wrong? Will we lose the hobbyist robotics in the process?

The last speaker was Michael Chester from International Marketing Consultants who talked about how to set up a business, how to get funding, how to market it and finally, how to exit.