Get ready to Roomba

The 980--betcha thought that was a Porsche--is ready to vac;

If you've ever seen a Roomba in action, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a curious, free-spirited explorer that eschewed straight lines and planned routes. Roombas bounce around seemingly at random, making arbitrary-looking course corrections and taking a "thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters" approach to cleaning floors -- keep at it long enough, the job will get done.

.... iRobot calls its approach iAdapt Responsive Cleaning Technology, which is a proprietary stew of algorithms that dictate strategies like random walk-angle changing and spiral cleaning, and that add up to full coverage of an average home space.

 But, at $899 you're still better off using child labor;

If you have kids at home who can be bought, bartered with, or sentenced to vacuuming duty, that still looks like the most cost-effective autonomous solution.

Then again, if you've got a bachelor pad to tidy up....