So, how many people have seen news blurbs or some type of commercial for the Roomba? Touted as the first mass-market robot for the home. It's a 4" tall saucer-shaped thing powered by a NIMH battery that circles around your floor, follows walls and generally wanders around cleaning house.

http://www.roombavac.com/
http://www.irobot.com/

It'll go for up to 90 minutes on a tile or wooden floor and perhaps about 60 on carpet between charges.

I hate vacuuming. This thing is looking very interesting. Interesting enough that I'm willing to pop the $200 to let it wander around my new appartment every morning (mostly hard-wood flooring with a bit of tile and an area-rug I've yet to buy).

So far I've seen only one negative review, but that guy's place was not at all typical to what I'll find myself in now or ever as far as I'm concerned.

It doesn't have an ethernet port and as far as I know can't accept custom software or play mp3's. One thing I do wish it had was the ability to go back to its charger when low on power, charge itself up and keep going. Now that would be ideal.

But I suppose it's the first generation consumer product, so there's room for these frills to come in a future version. Intersting nonetheless. Especially for lazy bastards such as myself.

Bruno