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A recent report published by MIT Technology Review revealed the Amazon-owned iRobot Roomba devices cleaning the floors of houses across the world are also capturing private images from within the homes. Some images of people on the toilet and in other uncomfortable and private scenarios were shared online to private Facebook and Discord groups by Venezuelan software contractors in 2020. The author of the MIT article, Eileen Guo, posted to Twitter about the findings, writing, “I investigated the origins of 15 video stills taken from inside homes by robot vacuums and shared to social media—some featuring humans in VERY candid...

In the fall of 2020, gig workers in Venezuela posted a series of images to online forums where they gathered to talk shop. The photos were mundane, if sometimes intimate, household scenes captured from low angles—including some you really wouldn’t want shared on the Internet. In one particularly revealing shot, a young woman in a lavender T-shirt sits on the toilet, her shorts pulled down to mid-thigh. The images were not taken by a person, but by development versions of iRobot’s Roomba J7 series robot vacuum. They were then sent to Scale AI, a startup that contracts workers around the...

"Not content with just spying on your online purchases, way too big leftist megacorp Amazon (founded by Jeff Bezos, who still owns the DC ComPost sleezepaper, which murders our Republic daily no matter the lighting or weather) today dropped iRobot into it’s cart. The move adds to Amazon’s holdings of 40 subsidiaries and counting. Among the companies they already use to spy on and control you are: Amazon itself (duh), FreeVee streamer..."

——Why We Wrote This—— How to counter invasive species, a common, and often intractable, problem? One entrepreneur’s clever approach offers lessons in finding solutions in the unlikeliest of places. If you can’t beat them, eat them. That is the common wisdom of many scientists, conservationists, and fishermen who dream of ridding the western Atlantic of invasive lionfish, a stunning aquarium fish that, when introduced in the wild, dominates and destroys reef ecosystems. However, catching lionfish has never been simple; they are not easily targeted by line or net fishing. Now, a surprising new invention may bring lionfish hunting to the...

BEAVERTON, Oregon — Washington County deputies cannot stop talking about a home burglary call Monday afternoon. A call for help came from a Beaverton home just before 2 p.m.. Deputy Brian Rogers was one of the first on scene. He was met my two guys who were house sitting for their nephew. “They had been out walking their dog and when they came back and walked in the house they heard noises in the house and a bathroom door close,” said Rogers. Fearing that an intruder was in the home, Rogers and two colleagues suited up. “I have what’s referred...

So, last week, something pretty tragic happened in our household. It's taken me until now to wrap my head around it and find the words to describe the horror. It started off simple enough - something that's probably happened to most of you. Sometime between midnight and 1:30am, our puppy pooped a massive poop on our rug in the living room. This is the only time she's done this, so it's probably just because we forgot to let her out before we went to bed that night. Now, if you have a detective's mind, you may be wondering how we...

Doomba is basically just a plug-in for Whitehouse’s own (far more useful) Noesis tool, which is used to convert between different model, image, and animation formats — for example, if you’re a game designer who needs to convert a model from one platform to another without redesigning things from scratch. Except in this case, it’s taking the image data from a Roomba and converting it (and by extension, the living room that the map is based on) into one of the unholy caverns of hell for you to slaughter endless demonic hordes in. And while the tool is meant for...

Alright, the title gives it all away but just in case, roomba is a robot vacuum that vacuums you floor every day while you're there or not. Dog dodo is dog crap, a pile of crap. Now my brother in law usually takes his dachshund's when he goes back to D.C for the work week. Since next week is going to be a short week for him he decided to leave the dogs behind at the house. Well, they're not well potty trained and he doesn't crate them. So by the time my sister gets home they've crapped all over...

A robot patrolling a street in San Francisco to ward off homeless people has been removed after complaints from locals, who also knocked it over and smeared it with feces. The Knightscope K5 security robot was deployed by the San Francisco branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) to deter homeless people from sleeping and loitering near its building.

In San Francisco, autonomous crime-fighting robots that are used to patrol parking lots, sports arenas, and tech company campuses are now being deployed to keep away homeless people. The San Francisco Business Times reported last week that the San Francisco SPCA, an animal advocacy and pet adoption group, put a security robot to work outside its facilities in the gentrifying Mission neighborhood. The robot's presence is meant to deter homeless people from setting up camps along the sidewalks. Last week, the City of San Francisco ordered the SF SPCA to keep its robot off the streets or be fined...

The Roomba is generally regarded as a cute little robot friend that no one but dogs would consider to be a potential menace. But for the last couple of years, the robovacs have been quietly mapping homes to maximize efficiency. Now, the device’s makers plan to sell that data to smart home device manufacturers, turning the friendly robot into a creeping, creepy little spy. While it may seem like the information that a Roomba could gather is minimal, there’s a lot to be gleaned from the maps it’s constantly updating. It knows the floor plan of your home, the basic...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., An Arkansas dad shared the story of how his family learned a messy lesson: "Do not, under any circumstances, let your Roomba run over dog poop." Jesse Newton of Little Rock said in a Facebook post his family's puppy, Evie, did her doggy doody in the living room after her human family members had gone to bed for the night. Newton said his family's Roomba vacuum cleaner started its programmed 1:30 a.m. run through the house and ended up spreading, rather than cleaning, Evie's droppings around the house. "And so begins the Pooptastrophe. The poohpocalypse. The pooppening,"...

One day the robots may rebel against humans, taking control of the world and turning us into a relatively green source of energy. But today is not that day, even if one such robot did “attack” its owner in South Korea.

This is just hilarious. I’ve watched it four times already and still can’t stop laughing. I guess the biggest question I have is how do you come up with such a brilliant idea? Yes, I am jealous. So, the video was shared with us by Reddit user nomer2 under the title This cat was hired to work at pizza hut in japan. This is his job.

The latest Web sensation: a black-and-white cat that seems to have no fear of vacuum cleaners -- at least the robotic kind. CNN reports that more than 1.6 million YouTube-watchers have seen this kitty sitting pretty aboard a Roomba.

Technology - Reuters Robot Invasion Puts People Out of Work, Thankfully Wed Feb 11, 2:56 PM ET Add Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Eric Auchard SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - They do the jobs no one else wants to do, with an attention to detail that boggles the mind. Even so, no government or political party is putting up immigration barriers to keep them out -- at least not yet. This new breed of worker is a robot that goes about its tasks, well, automatically. And, for hundreds of thousands of U.S. consumers who own the Roomba robotic vacuum...

The female mannequin at iRobot’s headquarters in Burlington, MA, is fairly typical: tall and thin, with perfect features and fingernails painted claret red. But instead of designer clothes, she’s modeling combat fatigues and a camouflage vest with a 500-megahertz computer system embedded in it. An eyepiece is mounted over one eye, and she holds a joystick to control the accompanying PackBot, a small, tanklike robot recently deployed in military missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. “She’s looking particularly stylish for a soldier,” quips Helen Greiner ’89, SM ’90, president and cofounder of iRobot. Thanks to PackBot and the Roomba Intelligent FloorVac,...