In addition to vacuuming both floors and carpets without sucking in rug fringe, the new generation of robots can sense when to slow down around furniture and walls.
"The robot sends out a beam of infrared light and when the light gets bounced back to the robot it says, 'OK, I'm near a wall. I should slow down a bit before I hit this wall,'" Preneta said.
The Roomba, apparently, is also robust enough to carry around a camera while it vacuums, as a CNET News.com senior reporter making a Roomba's-eye-view video demonstrates in this photo.
Photo by Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com
