Comments on: iRobot’s latest Negotiator robot to help police and soldiers in tactical tight spots

By: The GoVacuum Blog » Vacuum Technology to the Rescue (kind of)

The GoVacuum Blog » Vacuum Technology to the Rescue (kind of) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:00:28 +0000

[...] recent is their unveiling of the iRobot Negotiator, a “low-cost tactical robot designed to meet the basic reconnaissance needs of public safety [...]

By: iRobot’s latest Negotiator robot to help police and soldiers in tactical tight spots — iRboto.com, not iRobot.com ;-)

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:08:34 +0000

[...] When in doubt, send in a robot. That’s an increasingly common solution for the military and police these days. iRobot, the maker of cave-busting and vacuum-cleaning robots, today is announcing the introduction of its iRobot Negotiator. This low-cost tactical robot is designed to meet the basic reconnaissance needs of public safety professionals. The robot is a follow-on to the bigger iRobot PackBot 510. It costs less and is smaller, but can still negotiate through tough terrain such as stairs, Read more… [...]

By: RC

RC — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:00:07 +0000

Dean you missed this fact in your story today:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/irobot-st...

Last year, iRobot accused one of its former engineers, Jameel Ahed, of stealing its trade secrets to build his “Negotiator” machine. Today, the company turned the tables, announcing it will start selling Ahed's robot as its own.

Ahed and his Negotiator generated enormous interest in the military robotics community, as a low-cost alternative to iRobot's PackBot. Last summer, the two 'bots went head-to-mechanical-head to compete for the Pentagon's biggest robotics contract to date. And, for a time, Ahed secured the $285 million deal to supply the Army with up to 3,000 bomb-handling machines.

By: Randy

Randy — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:29:28 +0000

dean, amazing good stuff you've been doing since moving over (think i commented earlier, as one of those dead-tree reading over-40 types, i love venturebeat and it's use of folks who can spell…. but so good to see you over on this side, though your output has to be 2x what it was at the merc.

Keep it up — great articles today.