Today, iRobot unveils its latest innovation-- the iRobot Scooba(TM), the world's first Robotic Floor Washer, at the D: All Things Digital Conference. Scooba, a next-generation robot, simultaneously vacuums, scrubs and dries hard floors-- all at the touch of a button.

The folks at iRobot make the popular line of Roomba and Roomba Discovery robotic floor vacuums. In fact, Scooba looks very much like the Roomba Discovery but with some wild blue accents.

Frontline Robotics and White Box Robotics today announced that the two companies will merge to  to pursue leadership in the emerging security robotics industry. Frontline makes the Robot Open Control (ROC) robot operating system for security robots and White Box makes the PC-Bot mobile robot made from off the shelf parts.

RoboNexus 2004, hosted by Robotics Trends, brings the robotics fever to the West Coast. We've taken you through some photos of the products exhibited in our First Look report . Here are more products and photos from RoboNexus 2004.

Vacuum and Surveillance

iRobot introduced their second generation robotic vacuum, the Roomba Discovery, this summer. If you haven't read our review of the Roomba Discovery, head over to this link: http://www.everydayrobots.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=7&Itemid=25.

iRobot has sold over 1 million of these robotic vacuums, making the company the envy of the consumer robotics market.

Before the RoboNexus show even starts, we got a sneak peak at the products that will perform in the competitions or on display. We will bring you more in-depth reviews and reports on some the products here, but in this first look, we give you a peak at some of these robots.

If you are a starter in building robotics and playing with robotics kit, LEGO MINDSTORMS is a good kit for you to get your feet wet. If you are a serious robotics researcher, hobbyist or educator looking for a teaching platform, you will need something that's both easy to use and powerful enough to build projects or applications upon. The R1 Mobile Robotic Platform from Robotics Connection is designed for this purpose. It comes with powerful motors, durable and easy to work with material, very flexible programming options and a system that can be easily expanded to fit your needs as a robotics platform.

While both low and high end robotic vacuum cleaners have much in common when it comes to overall design philosophy, Karcher dares to be different with their RC 3000 RoboCleaner. What makes it different? The robot's base station automatically empties the dirt from the robot so you don't have to. Many folks have expressed a great desire for this feature, and the Karcher is currently the only robotic vacuum to offer it. Since you don't have to empty the robot's dirt bin every two hours, the vacuum can clean literally all day long without human intervention. To top it off, you won't have to invert and bang a dust bin over your trash can, sending dirt back into the air and your lungs. This and the RC 3000's ability to reliably return to its base station for cleaning and charging then set out again cleaning make it a very autonomous and worry-free robotic vacuum.

For educators and parents who want to introduce robotics to their kids, the LEGO's MINDSTORMS is a godsend. Introduced in 1998, this unique robotic kit comes in the form of LEGO toy pieces that kids know and love, and all electronic parts are pre-built and packaged in kid-safe format. The programming is simple yet flexible enough for those who wish to make more complex robots. The MINDSTORMS robotic kit is designed for children 12 years and older, and it's an excellent starter kit for first-timer robot builders, both children and adults.