Twice now, over the last 24 years, Colin Angle has surprised me. I'm not talking bemusement or nodding appreciation. Think jaw-dropping moments when I felt the earth shift a bit under my feet. The first time was in 2002 when he unveiled the iRobot Roomba, a rather basic-looking but shockingly effective robot vacuum, and the second was today, when he showed me a video of his new companion robot, the dog-sized Familiar.
Angle and I have spent decades talking about the robot revolution, or rather, having frank discussions about the reality of that not-quite-yet-here robot uprising. He's the one who cautioned me years ago that functional home humanoid robots wouldn't arrive until 2050. And when he rang me up to talk about his new product under the banner of "Familiar Machines and Magic", I wondered if perhaps he, too, had drunk the Kool-Aid and now believed that humanoid robots like Tesla Optimus, Neo Beta 1, and Figure 03 were all ready to join me in my kitchen or living room. I needn't have worried.
