Colin Angle
Colin Angle
iRobot Corporation is an American advanced technology company founded in 1990 by three MIT graduates who designed war robots. Now incorporated in Delaware, the company builds robots such as military and police robots, such as the PackBot along with autonomous home vacuum cleaner, the Scooba that scrubs and cleans hard floors...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryUnited States of America
stars war attention
"Star Wars" was the right movie for me. I watched the MSE-6 droid leading the stormtroopers where they needed to go when they were under attack, and that got my attention much more so than C-3PO and R2-D2 because we could actually build that.
names ideas brain
Around the late 1990s, I'd become convinced that one of the killer applications of robotics came from connecting robots to the Internet. The idea of solving generalized artificial intelligence was still far away, but heck, I could rent brains by hiring operators. iRobot was the name of the company and one of our most ambitious projects, iRobot LE.
people robots would-be
The ideal vacuum cleaner would be one you never see. It needs to not just be a cool gadget, but a product that cleans your floor correctly. I can imagine people having a cupboard full of robots that only come out when you need them to fulfil a specific purpose.
thinking people shapes
I think, people are generally willing to imagine robots of all shapes, as humanoid robots are not practical.
moving taken technology
The reason it has taken so long for the robotics industry to move forward is because people keep trying to make something that is cool but difficult to achieve rather than trying to find solutions to actual human problems. Technology can be extremely expensive if you don't focus.
stars real war
In the original 'Star Wars' movie, there is a small toaster-sized and shaped robot on the Death Star that guides Stormtroopers to where they need to go. I always liked that robot because I could imagine how to build it - and it served a real purpose.
interesting being-cool artificial-intelligence
Its going to be interesting to see how society deals with artificial intelligence, but it will definitely be cool.
technology firsts robots
The utility of the robot needs to come first. It's business model over technology.
technology voice understanding
When I was building robots in the early 1990s, the problems of voice recognition, image understanding, VOIP, even touchscreen technologies - these were robotics problems.
priorities promise vision
My very clear vision for the ideal Roomba is one you never see and you never touch. Our research priorities are explicitly focused on the Roomba of the future that will deliver on the promise of automatically cleaning your floor.
people care ends
We learned that very few people care how you accomplish something. Instead, these people care more about whether you create value for your end user.
technological-development space robots
That's exciting because to create new value in the robot space quickly, you need to stand on the shoulders of other technological developments.
mother book age
I was focused on building things from an early age. When I was about 3, our toilet broke, and my mother was ready to call the plumber. I told her I would fix it and asked her to get my Richard Scarry book 'How Things Work in Busytown.' Between the picture of a toilet and the text she read to me explaining how the parts worked, I fixed it.
distance team risk
At the World Cup, there is a constant risk that you might find a bag or some object that has been left behind, and no one is quite sure what it is. To bring in a full bomb-disposal team for each item can be very time-consuming. The PackBot can go over rough terrain, climb stairs, pick things up, and also be operated from a safe distance.