Brian's Brain

Following up on my two-week-back coverage of the release of Microsoft Robotics Studio, Bill Gates authored the cover story on robotics, A Robot In Every Home, in January's issue of Scientific American. I perused it last night and it's quite a fascinating read; Gates makes a pretty convincing pitch that today's robotics industry is in a similar state of maturity (or, if you prefer, immaturity) as the PC industry was in the mid-1970s. The article wraps up with the statement, "As these devices become affordable to consumers, they could have just as profound an impact on the way we work, communicate, learn and entertain ourselves as the PC has had over the past 30 years." And, although he doesn't come right out and say it, it's pretty clear to me that with products like Robotics Studio, he aspires for his company to take a leading role in this emerging market just as he and Paul Allen did with the PC from the moment they founded Microsoft nearly 32 years ago.

I'm curious to find out, after you read through the Scientific American piece, what you think of Gates' vision. Do you believe that robotics is one of the key growth areas for electronics in the coming years and decades; are you in fact working in the robotics industry now? Is Microsoft's defacto software standardization necessary for the robotics industry to blossom, or is there a opportunity for a traditional embedded operating system or an open-source O/S such as Linux? And now switching hats from 'engineer' to 'consumer', what role(s) do you see robots playing in your future personal life?

One of the companies showcased in Gates' article is iRobot Corporation, a supplier both of robots for military and law enforcement applications, and for consumer applications in the form of products such as the Roomba and Scooba. And ironically, a review copy of a book called Hacking Roomba showed up on my doorstep last week. I'd peripherally heard of the robotic vacuum cleaner (Roomba) and floor scrubber (Scooba) before, but until I flipped through Hacking Roomba I didn't realize just what amazing (and inexpensive) devices these products were. I'm equally impressed with how enthusiastically iRobot has embraced the hacker and research communities, going so far as to release Roomba Open Interface software and documentation, and to sell a low-cost tool for upgrading Roombas made prior to the release of the necessary ROI-compliant firmware. It's now even possible to manipulate a Roomba with a Wii game controller....amazing stuff!

I made the mistake of leaving the book lying around, where my wife found it, also flipped through it and has now caught the Roomba-acquisition bug. Honey, if I only didn't already have such a tall stack of electronics hardware and software projects awaiting my attention....!!!!

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