Robot Wars
Soon your living room could be the scene of a titanic battle between two hulking robotic beasts, armed to the teeth with high-tech suction devices conceived in the most twisted scientific minds! Too long has Roomba enjoyed a comfy rule of the lounge floor; it’s time for SmartCarpet, a tougher, meaner upstart to challenge it for the throne. We’ll have a no-holds-barred fight to the death, a maelstrom of twisted metal and spinning shrapnel. To the victor, the carpet, to the loser, total annihilation… Well, it was a nice fantasy for a while but regrettably these robotic vacuum cleaners are a threat to dust bunnies alone and are not likely to be programmed to terminate their rivals on sight.
SmartCarpet promises to improve on Roomba’s hovering efficiency by using RFID technology to ensure that no part of the carpet goes uncleaned. Apparently Roomba can miss small sections as it weaves a crazy dance around the walls and furniture, then you have to go through the whole laborious process of making a cup of tea, putting your feet up and waiting for it start up again – what a pain. Hamlin based company Vorwerk has joined forces with Munich’s Infineon to make a special sensors that the SmartCarpet communicates with to guide its cleaning pattern, but the bad news is you’ll need a new carpet which seems a bit of a conceptual flaw in the idea.
via Gizmodo
