Turn Your Roomba Into a Household Google Bot 79
Wael Chatila writes "By adding an on-board computer and a camera on a Roomba, the Roomba can be used to index your home. As a bonus, you can also control the Roomba across an internet connection, and see the images from the camera — a spybot for you to check on your own home while you are out."
Interview With a Happy Owner (Score:4, Funny)
Mary Ann Oakes: Oh, it's great! I've never been able to find things as fast as I can now but
Interviewer: "But"?
Mary Ann Oakes:
Interviewer: Do you mind talking about it?
Mary Ann Oakes: Well, we had a dog named Scooter that stayed in the garage and, of course, the Google Bot indexed tons of pictures of Scooter. Playing with kids
Interviewer: Oh, I see.
Mary Ann Oakes: Yeah, well, we immediately took Scooter to "a nice family farm down the street (wink wink)" and asked the Google Bot to
Interviewer: Well, I see how that would be desirable.
Mary Ann Oakes: Yes well, we received compliance at first but recently he's threatened to pull out of the garage altogether if we don't let him show the kids when they ask him to 'find Scooter.'
Interviewer: And will you allow that?
Mary Ann Oakes: Oh, absolutely not. Little Billy cried for days after that happened. Scooter was Billy's dog after all. And I did what any good American mother would do, I took him to a psychiatrist and demanded the most potent and expensive drugs for my little Billy no matter what burden that put on the Health Care system.
Interviewer: Well, isn't dealing with death a natural part of life?
Mary Ann Oakes: Perhaps but it's ever so inconvenient for me to help Billy through that! And now what am I going to do? I can't let the Google Bot show Billy evidence of what I accidentally did to Scooter or Billy will hate me forever.
Interviewer: So you won't budge?
Mary Ann Oakes: Of course not. Who needs the Google Bot in the garage anyway?
How to make Googlebot sad (Score:5, Funny)
User-agent: Google-Bot /pussy/
Disallow:
Cool! (Score:3, Funny)
In (un)related news... (Score:5, Funny)
Just announced: The Lower Merion School District of Pennsylvania [slashdot.org] is now giving their students free Roombas ...
Re:Always thought of doing this for pest control (Score:4, Funny)
So you had a fleeting thought of arming robots with weapons and letting the kinds of people who cheat at Counterstrike control those weapons? I think the neighborhood cats would probably be safe, except there would be no one around to feed them and they'd go all feral and eat the bodies of their owners.
Bad outcome (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bad outcome (Score:5, Funny)
Buy your daughter a stronger bed.
Re:Interview With a Happy Owner (Score:3, Funny)
The Chinese eat dog, see, and the minivan represents the oppression of the masses, and clearly the garage is supposed to be the Cowardly Lion. Geeze, don't any of you damn kids study semiotics in college these days?
Google + Roomba = (Score:1, Funny)
I have a feeling Italian plumbers around the world are gonna hate this.
Re:Interview With a Happy Owner (Score:4, Funny)
In my day we studied full otics, you lazy youngster!
American Dad (Score:3, Funny)
"I like to be watched while people work for me; it's a power thing."