Microsoft has released-to-manufacture Microsoft Robotics Studio (via Dan Fernandez).
\<a href="http://www.knowing.net/images/MicrosoftRoboticStudioRTMs_BA78/image02.png"" atomicselection="true">We got a Roomba as an early Christmas present and I gotta' tell you, it's won over my extremely-skeptical wife. My least favorite chore is sweeping our long, steep driveway and I'm very tempted to get another and mod it for the task (put a plow on the front for the leaves and stones, desensitize or shut off the bump sensor, maybe turn off the brushes altogether. I looked at the Roomba API and it seems straightforward.). Man. If I had a robotic driveway cleaner and an autonomous frog-killing blimp? That would be totally sweet. Totally.