iRobot Just Violated Asimov's First Law of Robotics (IRBT)

From Eric Savitz at Forbes:

iRobot Shares Slide; Q1 Outlook Misses Street Estimates

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. – Isaac Asimov, Law One Of the Three Laws of Robotics.

Looks like iRobot just violated the first law.

A maker of home and military robots, iRobot this afternoon provided mixed news for investors in reporting Q4 financial results, and the stock is sagging.

For Q4, the company reported revenues of $100.7 million, down from $130.8 million a year ago, and just shy of the Street at $100.9 million. The company lost 21 cents a share in the quarter; that was actually a smaller loss than the 34 cents a share in the red that the Street had projected....MORE

We like Eric, used to call him the hardest working guy in show business financial journalism.

Back to IRBT, I used to think of them as a niche player with the Roomba. Then they go and do something like this, reported Jan. 29: 

iRobot files patent for machine that 3D prints autonomously

One of the most interesting science fiction apocalypse scenarios involves the rise of "grey goo," an enormous blob of nanotech-powered self-replicating robots that slowly consume the planet. Thankfully, we're far off from needing to even consider such a situation, but a new patent application from iRobot hints that a smaller scale version of such a scenario could indeed play out in the years to come.

The patent is for a mechanism called a "Robot Fabricator," a device that would allow robots to autonomously construct a wide range of products, from design to final 3D fabrication and assembly, all without any direct human involvement. If one were to take notion of such a device to its extreme and couple it with the open source 3D-printed robots we know are already being made, it's not difficult to envision a robot that creates robots operating in the not-too-distant future....MORE

Got that?
Robotic 3D printing.
Here's the patent, you'll note that iRobot's co-assignee is Raytheon BBN.

For our younger readers BBN used to be known as Bolt, Beranek and Newman for the MIT profs that founded it.
Back in the day they helped create the internet (ARPANET, MILNET) and did a lot of work in packet switching. The company's website brags a bit: first email ever sent and why we use the @ symbol in emails.
They used to be called Cambridge's third university after Harvard and MIT.

Autonomous 3D Printing.
Wow
Here's more from Google patents.
You might say wow too.
The stock is off 9.11% in spotty after-hours trading, $ 21.65, down $2.17 last.

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