How To Give Robot Vacuums a Personality (And Why It Matters)

…. It’s not just that it’s possible to do create a robot with a personality, but what’s relevant is it actually makes a difference to the end user. This is a more important point than you might think; by way of example, consider the difference between the iRobot Roomba and the Neato XV-11. Which one of these vacuums cleans better is certainly up for debate (and we’ve debated it), but as we’ve pointed out in the past, iRobot has a perception problem with theirpseudo-random method of cleaning versus the Neato’s straight line technique. The XV-11 just seems smarter to people, whether or not it actually does a better job, and that makes a difference when people are deciding what vacuum they want to buy.

http://gizmodo.com/5815879/how-to-give-robot-vacuums-a-personality-and-why-it-matters