Yesterday, iRobot Corp., the manufacturer of the Roomba and PackBots, went to a federal court in Boston and asked a judge to issue an order halting the production of a rival robot builder's machines. iRobot alleges that a former employee of the company, Jameel Ahed, designed the bots for his new firm, Robotic FX, using iRobot trade secrets. No, that's not a PackBot pictured on the left.

There's more than pride at stake here. Robotic FX just won a $280 million contract from the military last week. It looks like production at Robotic FX won't shut down, but this should be an interesting case to follow. Personally, I think they should just let the robots fight it out.—Gregory Mone

Via Boston Globe

Why: To patrol your home while you're away, capturing images you can access on any Web-connected device.

The Gear: Tablet PC, webcam, cable, battery pack, strong Velcro

How: Use the onboard PC to send the Roomba instructions to (roughly) follow a predetermined path around your pad. Set the webcam to snap a picture every few minutes and automatically upload it over your Wi-Fi network to a photo-sharing site such as Flickr, which you can log onto from anywhere. Advanced trick: Wire the battery pack to recharge when the Roomba hits the base station so that it can operate indefinitely.

Courtesy Gina Trapani

The Roomba's new serial interface lets you use the little vacuum for any robotics task you like, controllable through preprogrammed instructions or over Bluetooth from a laptop. We wrote about some 'bots you could make with this in the January issue's How 2.0 section, but the obvious outcome was finally realized last night at ETech: Roomba cockfighting. More photos as well as videos (including some from the Roomba's point of view) here.

—Mike Haney

From the Jetsons' Rosie to Richie Rich's Irona to Robby of Forbidden Planet, we've been promised digital domestics that look and act a lot like . . . a maid. But that isn't going to happen anytime soon, robot experts say. The problem? Today's machines are a long way from having the anthropomorphic qualities-above all, sight-found in human help.