[JK @ Sep 27th 2007 3:59PM]

Am I the only one who thinks both these are incredibly lame?

Looj: Horrible name, no one is going to get the reference. Good price point, but a pointless bot. If I'm going to climb up a ladder to place/retrieve and inevitebly un-stick a bot, I'll just get my hands dirty and save a hundy. Besides, not all houses have great lengths of straight gutter.

ConnectR: Wifi-controlled roomba with a speakerphone/webcam on it. $500. Huh? I see great PR for this if they get a bunch of deployed troops using them to play virtual daddy while they're in the sandbox, but beyond that, I just don't get the point.

Oh, I didn't read the PR

[MJK @ Sep 27th 2007 4:06PM]

This might actually work out with a little bit more work

I see good use for telecommuting workers. The gentlemen in the article made a telepresence robot (similar to the CR, plus a monitor for bi-directional video feeds) to telecommute across Canada. Teleconferencing, phone calls and the like didn't work out as well as this robot. So there is definately potential. His, however, was a slight bit taller.

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9772377-1.html

I'm seriously thinking about building my own telepresence robot...

[JK @ Sep 27th 2007 4:12PM]

Yah, I've seen that, and that actually makes sense. The ConnectR, as is, is nothing like that, however.