Roomba Path (photo by SignalTheorist)

CNET writes about a new model of the Roomba automatic vacuum cleaner and its application of technology iRobot originally developed for mine sweeping (real mines, not the game), touching briefly on the state of the consumer robotics field. Amazingly it includes the following sentence:

On the other end of the spectrum, the Roomba cleans up the living room and, in all likelihood, could not be used by a mad scientist to take over the Earth.

It sounds like someone’s been reading recent Sluggy Freelance comics!