ava

BURLINGTON, Mass.--Someday soon Ava the robot may bring you to the Roomba vacuum cleaners at Best Buy or call you if an elderly relative at home fell down and can't get up. But first she has to get in the good graces of doctors.

Ava is iRobot's three-wheeled pedestal-shaped robot that sports a tablet computer as its "head," the primary user interface. If the pieces fall into place as its creators hope, Ava will be the company's ticket into new markets beyond its remote-controlled military bots and Roomba-led home cleaning products.

iRobot will start trials this year of Ava in a couple of her target industries of health care, retail, and building security, CEO Colin Angle said in an interview with CNET. During a demo last week at the company's headquarters here, a prototype Ava smoothly navigated through iRobot's office space based on a map it had generated itself.

Although its movements were not flawless (table tops remain a challenge), Ava points to a new era in mobile robots brought about by advances in other technologies, notably by better sensors.

"So much of robotics has to do with physical motion--navigation around our environment and doing increasingly high-level tasks--it makes these two initial markets (of military and home cleaning) seem pedestrian versus the dream of what's possible," said Angle.… Read more

Robotics company iRobot has reorganized to better focus on bringing its Ava pedestal robot to new places, including hospitals and stores.

The company yesterday created a new business unit around Ava and named Joe Dyer as its chief strategy officer tasked with finding new markets for iRobot's products. Jeff Beck, the former head of the home robotics division that makes the Roomba vacuum, was promoted to chief operating officer.

The changes are geared toward letting iRobot move into new business areas with its existing products and Ava, said CEO Colin Angle. iRobot makes a good part of its revenue from the military, but the budget in the coming year is uncertain, he said. … Read more

Robotics company iRobot today invested in a telemedicine provider to expand into the health care industry.

iRobot said the $6 million stake in InTouch Health, which makes remote presence devices and software designed to let caregivers provide patient care remotely.

With the investment, the two companies will test out iRobot's robots for telemedicine--including iRobot's Ava, which operates on a pedestal and uses a tablet computer for a user interface. The companies expect to use the Ava platform "for remote healthcare and assistive technologies for the elderly," iRobot CEO Colin Angle said in a statement.

With aging … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It's a big day for The 404 as we welcome two big Hollywood names to the CES stage--Eliza Dushku and Wayne Brady drop by for a chat about video games, robots, gadgets, and more!

It's not every day that The 404 is lucky enough to have one big name celebrity guest on the show, much less two in one episode! We've been waiting all week to chat with Eliza Dushku about her official duties as the official Entertainment Matters Ambassador for CES 2012, which sounds like a fun job!

She's been here hosting parties and covering the show all week, so we'll talk to her about the next wave of 3D televisions and her voice acting work in games like Fight Night Champion and WET, but we'd be doing our listeners and nerds everywhere a disservice if we didn't ask her about her involvement in role in Ghostbusters 3!… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--iRobot hopes someday soon a robot waiter will deliver your food--and it might well use an Android tablet to see, hear, speak, and think.

At the Google I/O show here today, iRobot CEO Colin Angle showed off a prototype called AVA that the company plans to begin selling this year to developers to try to ignite the market.

Today there are two general robot types that are sustainable businesses: high-end, expensive ones for defusing bombs in Afghanistan or monitoring radiation in Japan, and low-end ones for vacuuming. Angle wants an intermediate category and believes tablets will enable that market to develop.

"The third option is the interesting one, with technology advances enabling robots to do things more like Rosie from the Jetsons," Angle told thousands of developers assembled at Google's show. "That's where you all come in. The robot industry can't be trusted to solve this problem. We need the mobile computing industry to come in and save our bacon through things like this."

AVA grafts a tablet onto a mobile robot body that can navigate floors. An Android-powered Motorola Xoom tablet was not just the brains of the operation, but the senses and face as well.

"We in the robot industry realized this is a fantastic head for a robot," with a camera and microphone for visual input and a screen and speakers to let people interact with the robot. "What was missing was the body," Angle said.

Thus, AVA, with a tablet on top of a stalk and a wider base with wheels to move around. The robot can create its own map of an area as it navigates. … Read more