iRobot to sell AVA the Android-based robot

SAN FRANCISCO--iRobot hopes someday soon a robot waiter will deliver your food--and it might well use an Android tablet to see, hear, speak, and think. At the Google I/O show here today, iRobot CEO Colin Angle showed off a prototype called AVA that the company plans to begin selling this year to developers to try to ignite the market. Today there are two general robot types that are sustainable businesses: high-end, expensive ones for defusing bombs in Afghanistan or monitoring radiation in Japan, and low-end ones for vacuuming. Angle wants an intermediate category and believes tablets will enable that market to develop. "The third option is the interesting one, with technology advances enabling robots to do things more like Rosie from the Jetsons," Angle told thousands of developers assembled at Google's show.