All Robot, All Mega
Telepresence robots will become more popular with time, as will robot vacuum cleaners. iRobot makes both. The Ava 500 has:
While similar products are basically an iPad on a stick with wheels, the screen on the Ava 500 is 21.5 inches.
One face, one neck, one eye. Jibo is a stationary robot suited to sitting on a table. He weighs 2.7 kilos and can run on battery-power for 30 minutes. So to some degree he can follow you around the house (if you carry him).
The first model, which will ship in 2015, will perform simple tasks like taking voice reminders, fielding phone calls and messages – connecting to the family’s phones through Wi-Fi. He will also act as the heart of the home connecting to iPads, TVs and games consoles. More complex skills include automatically identifying the faces in a room and taking pictures on request and reading a story to a child. New Scientist
I think the key selling point is that Jibo has artificial intelligence and will chat with you. Not conversations where you test the limits of his intelligence, but rather casual chit chat with an electronic family member.
Or will people love using it as their family photographer? See the video:
Or perhaps as an interface to your smart home.
Or to give you telepresence from afar.
Could take off, because they raised $2 million on a $100K goal via crowd-funding a few months back