No more house work

No more house work, I can hear you all yelling with joy. Could this be the end of the James home cleaning service?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — What may be the world’s smallest robot — it “turns on a dime and parks on a nickel” — is being developed by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories.

At 1/4 cubic inch and weighing less than an ounce, it is possibly the smallest autonomous untethered robot ever created. Powered by three watch batteries, it rides on track wheels and consists of an 8K ROM processor, temperature sensor, and two motors that drive the wheels. Enhancements being considered include a miniature camera, microphone, communication device, and chemical micro-sensor.

Robots are becoming smaller, smarter, autonomous and cheaper. And, above all, they are now entering our homes. Robotic pets, smart toys, autonomous lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners, or mechanical security guards, among others, will lead the dance. Welcome in the "domestic robots era". In the years to come, we will all get one or many of these machines. Rodney Brooks, head af MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab (and founder of iRobot, a domestic robots manufacturer) envisions a future where dozens of tiny and autonomous machines will clean the windows, wipe the table or monitor our house when we're out, creating a new "domestic ecology". British Telecom's own futurologist, Ian Pearson, predicts that by year 2020, a few millions of tiny, insect-like robots will populate the Earth.