With the top-of-the line $249 Roomba Discovery, iRobot redesigns its robot vacuum to be easier to use, smarter, more effective at picking up dirt, and able to clean for far longer periods of time. Though it’s entertaining to watch as it makes crop-circle-shaped passes around your den or kitchen, it can take 10 times as long to vacuum a standard room as you would with your upright vacuum. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The Roomba still gets to places the upright cannot. It uses an updated Motorola CPU and algorithms to figure out the room layout and decide when the floor is clean.

From PC Magazine

Funny, I just finished reading Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot (should be required reading). I wonder if this vacuum cleaner follows the 3 laws of robotics:

1) A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Anyway, a friend of mine has the first version and loves it.