Dyson Preparing a Roomba Killer?

An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist's technology blog reports that Dyson, the UK company that reinvented the vacuum cleaner, is recruiting robotics engineers. They're looking for people with experience of machine vision and mobile robots that create their own maps. Is Dyson hoping to take on the Roomba with a much more sophisticated machine?"

yawn

[User 956]

Dyson, the UK company that reinvented the vacuum cleaner

Yeah, they re-invented it to be the BOSE of vacuum cleaners. [obviousdiversion.com]

Re:They've had a robot vaccum for a couple of year

[iocat]

It can frustrating to watch a roomba "miss" a spot, but the roomba algorithm is actually quite sophisticated. I'm not sure you'd want/need better pathfinding. What I'd like is a solution that enabled the roomba to get into tighter corners, but this seems like an engineering challenge too far.

Re:Hope it's better than the dyson...

[fabs64]

Solid? My parents have had the same vacuum cleaner, in a very big house with 3 kids for 23 years.
It's not even really any more awkward than a new vacuum cleaner, and seems to pick up dust fine.
But oh noes! It has a paper bag to replace every few months! :S

Re:Yes, it's strange

[brokeninside]

Consumer's Union, the organization behind Consumer Reports, buys all of the merchandise they test from retail stores so that they are testing the same kit that consumers are buying. The also develops fairly rigorous methodologies for testing. For example, in their vacuum cleaner review, they create dump the same amount of artificially concocted dirt on several different surfaces ranging from a deep shag carpet to a bare floor and record the results of having each model having a go. Does Which? take a similar approach or like most consumer magazines do they accept review models from manufacturers and simply hand them out to their staff try them out at home?

In Consumer Reports, Eureka, Hoover and Kenmore models usually grab the top spots. Of course different models by these same companies usually grab some of the lowest spots as well. All of Dyson's models usually come in at the middle of the pack which is kind of curious given that it costs about twice as much as the top rated Hoovers and Kenmores and three to four times as much as the top rated Eurekas.

Re:Reliability more important

[Sobrique]

Agreed. The real advantage of robot vacuum cleaners (or lawnmowers) would be to just 'let them run'. I don't care it it takes a few days to cover all my floor space, what I do care about is that I don't have to faff around with unloading, recharging, or otherwise 'playing' with my new robotic toy.

Get me a cleaning bot that runs for weeks without intervention, and covers the whole area over that sort of period, and I'll buy one. (So I might actually go look at the siemens one, it sounds like what I'm after)

Roomba Doesn't Suck

[rhkaloge]

Is Dyson hoping to take on the Roomba with a much more sophisticated machine?

The advantage the roomba has, beside the OMGIOWNAROBOT factor, is that it goes under stuff. Thus, it doesn't actually suck - it's more a floor sweeper than a vacuum. To apply their super-expensive sucking technology to a robot, it will need to be much taller than the Roomba. What we'll get is the same machine with more marketing.

Yes, I'm 32, and yes, I chuckled every time I typed "suck".

Re:Try Vacuum'ing

[Alioth]

That's because they will either be using some sort of 'shop vac' style machine, or a Kirby. Kirby vacuum cleaners aren't made out of plastic - they are hewn from metal (and even have 'self drive' like lawnmowers have). They are also extremely powerful. A Kirby is hugely expensive, but if you're using the thing 8 hours a day, it will pay to have one as it'll last many years.

Re:Ethical question

[Plutonite]

Yep, cause we aint bleeding heart enough about people already.. now they can be bleeding heart about the neocortical simulation running on a microcontroller in my toaster.

Very well put, you answered him perfectly. Whenever I read something like "when AI gains awareness" I get very strong impulses to kill people and/or cause damage to my surroundings, and I am not really a violent person.

a) AI is not going to "gain awareness" very soon, if at all. In fact, we (comp. scientists) don't know what awareness really means, because it turns out our friends in cognitive psychology are pretty stumped as well. It's not about complexity - we can handle that. It's just that it may very well be that human consciousness(which affects all of cognition) is not representable mathematically. Decades of mathematical philosophy, Godel, Hilbert, Turing and others have shown us how futile mathematics (and by extension computation) is due to its LACK of inconsistency, a property that seems to belong to human reasoning alone due to this business of "awareness". Talk to any decent veteran of AI and you will see how sobered up they are compared to the cowboys who make comments like the GP, and who in my opinion should be locked up in jail until they understand the incompleteness theorems fully.

b) "Touching" and "feeling" mean nothing if he was talking about responding to stimuli through some mechanism. Any old chair "responds" to getting kicked. Tree leaves respond to gusts of wind. Circuits respond to changes in their resistance caused by mechanical action and from this the entire field of sensors is born. There's no magic there, only simple physics. The magic is not in the mechanism/feeling, but in the recognition of the feeling, and that takes us back to (a).

I sincerely hope people will stop talking about things they don't understand in the future, for the benefit of our collective blood pressure. Thanks again for the +1 Insightful comment tho, I couldn't have said anything better without resorting to abusive language :)

Re:Yes, it's strange

[alienw]

Consumer Reports generally doesn't know what the hell they are talking about. They are OK if you are completely clueless about a certain type of product. However, they are often even more clueless. Just look at their ratings for cars, music players, hi-fi equipment, and so on. With cars, they often give badge-engineered versions of the same car wildly different ratings, with the Toyota version always being on top and the GM version being at the bottom for things like reliability ratings. With hi-fi equipment, they used to use sound quality tests that might have been meaningful in the 50s. With music players, they look at the feature list rather than the product.

I can almost always make a better decision by looking at the products myself and making a subjective decision rather than deriving a score from a set of 5 "objective" variables. The magazine quite obviously caters to a demographic of paranoid cheapskates who think everyone is out to rip them off, and their results generally reflect that.

Astroturf!

[rubmytummy]

I think the tone of the OP is awfully slick, e.g. "the UK company that reinvented the vacuum cleaner". Two beers say the anonymous submitter is a Dyson marketing consultant.

Two woods: hardwood flooring

[PhotoGuy]

One thing that constantly amazes me in today's increasing tech world, is that people will still tolerate carpet in the slightest. It is like a magnet and trap for dirt and parasites and odor. A hardwood floor is so much more hygenic, hypoallergenic, and easy to clean. If you think hardwood floors are expensive or cold, there have been great advances in the past ten years. Laminate hardwood flooring is great looking, cheap, and easy to install (click together floating floors, with minimal cutting; anyone who can use a saw can pretty much install ones). If you like the look/feel of ceramic tile, you can get them to look like this, too. There are new cheap (and safety approved) in-floor heating options for use with laminate floors, as well, for a very cosy heating option. And an area rug over a hardwood floor provides added comfort, and an easier to clean/replace option.

Yes, laminate hardwood isn't quite as classy as real hardwood, but it's darn close, and it's cheap, easy to install, and tough as nails (well, tougher, really).

I see carpets as something that will seem dusgusting, ancient, and obselete within a few years. It's interesting to see technology to take care of them advancing, when there are so many better options.

I own a Dyson

[The Raven]

And I've owned many other vacuums in the past as well. The Dyson is easier to empty, easier to manipulate (add extensions, use the hose, etc), and more reliable than any other vacuum I've ever used or owned. Honestly, I was pretty surprised at Consumer Report's mediocre ratings for the Dyson as well. I chalk it up to three things:

- They're nice to their vacuums. I suspect they don't try to vacuum up trash, paperclips, tacks, and other detritus. I've had my Dyson suck up things that stunned me... a normal bic lighter got sucked up without getting stuck. In fact, I've NEVER had anything stick inside yet, despite abusing it horribly. And if something did stick, the joins where they are likely to stick snap off easily.

- They don't test them for long. The only thing I've had to clean on my Dyson is the sweeper brush, about once or twice a year... long hairs get wrapped around it, and eventually it interferes with the belt that turns it. It's relatively easy to remove that rotating brush... MUCH easier than any other vacuum I've owned. The screws that hold it in are large so you can remove them with a coin, and there's only three parts... the plastic bottom, the brush itself, and the drive belt.

- They don't put a rating on how easy they are to empty. With the Dyson you just detach the container, hold it over the garbage... pull trigger... tap it to get the light dust out. Close it up. Compared to the dust, mess, and cost of bags and there is no comparison. Even compared with other bagless vacuums I've used, the Dyson is far easier to empty... many of them require you to lift and dump the container, or they don't seal well and let dust leak out. Other bagless vacuums often have filters you need to change for the light particulate dust.

Is Dyson perfect? Hardly. But I don't think the Consumer Reports tests are comprehensive enough to rate the things where Dyson is superior. I've had my Dyson for three years now, and I'm still quite satisfied.