Robots set to get homely by 2007

According to a United Nations survey robots are set to get homely by 2007.

“By the end of 2007, 4.1 million robots will be doing jobs in homes, says the report by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics.”

Personally, I can’t see this happening. According to a World Robotics report there are currently 607,000 robots in use in the home. So they’re set to increase by approximately 675% in just over 3 years? That’s a pretty big increase don’t you think?

The idea of having robots to do the vacuuming, mowing the lawn and washing the windows is very appealing, but unless the price of the robot is roughly the same as the price of a normal vacuum cleaner or lawn mower, I can’t see your average Joe shelling out for the novelty of being able to say “I have a robot to do my vacuuming!”, can you?