What would it take for home robots to be good at what they do?

Almost every year at CES, potentially the greatest gathering of visionaries and ideas that push technology forward, one would see a robot walking, rolling or sliding down an aisle. Occasionally, one of these robots would even pop up during a company's presentation, as was in the case of LG's Cloi during this year's show. While these robots are always interesting to look at, they rarely deliver on the promises of their maker -- whether it be a startup or a veteran like LG. Take a look again at Cloi's embarrassing refusal to answer the questions of LG's head of marketing in the U.S., David VanderWaal: LG's Cloi was one among the many robots that graced the CES this year. The most useful among them, as Wilson Rothman noted in The Wall Street Journal, were not the humanoid looking ones.