I Robot, You Robot, We all Robot for iRobot.

Today, two pieces of news about iRobot's famous and profitable line of disk-shaped home-cleaning robots hit the interweb. That's right, two:

• First up: Some clever guy has hacked his Bluetooth cellular phone to enable him to control his Roomba with his cell phone. Neat, eh? I'd like to point out to Alison, who won't let me disassemble the Roomba we are planning to acquire, that this project doesn't require taking the robot apart; it's done using a Bluetooth interface that plugs into an existing serial port on the Roomba.
• Next: My favorite magazine is reporting that iRobot will be producing a new robot called the Dirt Dog. The D'Dog, as I'm inclined to call it, is to the shop vac what the Roomba is to the regular vacuum cleaner. Now, if I just had a real workshop, I'd be all over this.