The best-known manufacturer of autonomous vacuums declared bankruptcy this week, and no one should be surprised. The home-vacuum robot began, like most things, with war. In August 1990, the same month and year Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, three MIT roboticists incorporated the company that would eventually become iRobot, the maker of the Roomba. In its first decade, iRobot began to assemble a small-droid A-team for the theater of combat. The Ariel defused mines; the PackBot handled bomb disposal.

Apple has teams investigating a push into personal robotics, a field with the potential to become one of the company's ever-shifting "next big things," according to people familiar with the situation. Engineers at Apple have been exploring a mobile robot that can follow users around their homes, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the "skunkworks" project is private. The iPhone maker also has developed an advanced tabletop home device that uses robotics to move a display around, they said. Though the effort is still in the beginning stages -- and it's unclear if the products will ultimately be released -- Apple is under growing pressure to find new sources of revenue. It scrapped an electric-vehicle project in February, and a push into mixed-reality goggles is expected to take years to become a major moneymaker.