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
bank economic figure four half money paid rocket six starting took weeks
Starting out, iRobot was not an economic rocket ship. It took six and a half years before we had enough money in the bank at the beginning of each month to make payroll. We always made it - we paid salaries at the end of the month, and I always had four weeks to figure things out.
floors home robot vacuum
You're not going to talk to your vacuum cleaning robot: in fact, you may never see your vacuum cleaning robot because, ideally, you come home every day and your floors are freshly vacuumed.
human
What did everyone think robot vacuuming was going to be? Well, they think Rosie the Robot from 'The Jetsons,' a human robot that pushed a vacuum. That was never going to happen.
home technology healthcare-reform
One of the big things coming out of healthcare reform is a thing called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS) which is a mechanism to reimburse people staying at home for technology and services that allow them to stay at home.
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.
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.
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.
mean ideas understanding
The answer is navigation, manipulation, and implementation of more sophisticated intelligence. The idea that a robot will become more aware of its environment, that telling it to "go to the kitchen" means something - navigation and understanding of the environment is a robot problem. Those are the technological frontiers of the robotics industry.
real passion creating-things
I grew up mostly in Schenectady, N.Y. From an early age, building and creating things was a real passion for me.
people robots building
Building robot versions of people is very expensive.