Even the little Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner morphed into a programmable robot called Create and made the list.

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After all, I should have been the perfect customer for a robotic vacuum.

FORBES: RoboVacuums

These robots--whether designed to cut your grass or merely to keep you entertained--are luxury items, and with the exception of the relatively inexpensive Roomba robotic vacuum, they are owned mainly by hobbyists and high-end gadget enthusiasts.

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The present generation of factory robots is akin to early mainframe computers in offices, reckons Rodney Brooks, a co-founder of iRobot, an American firm whose products include the Roomba, a robotic vacuum-cleaner, as well as military robots.

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Or, more precisely, nearly upon us, because the robotic vacuum cleaners I tested actually bear a much closer resemblance to the quirky appliances on The Flintstones than they do to the flawlessly performing bots featured on The Jetsons.

FORBES: RoboVacuums

We get a first glimpse of the tablet (or at least a tablet with a rear-facing camera) at about 10 seconds into the video posted after the break -- it's being held by a man who just used Thinq from his office to remotely feed his dog while watching the whole thing go down from the camera on his HOM-BOT robotic vacuum cleaner.

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