News.com has done an excellent interview with iRobot’s Colin Angle. About Roomba, Angle says the "… company has shipped 1.2 million Roombas", and that, "… we’ll be announcing an API of sorts for it." That confirms our earlier post about it.

On the "dissing Japan" front, Angle says, "I think humanoid robots are interesting and economically irrelevant for the foreseeable future." Honestly, I think I’d agree.

Angle also makes it clear that iRobot is doing pretty well financially. He says, "PackBot is a product that’s got a price tag of about $120,000 with the arm on it, and we’ve got 200 of those things over in Iraq", and that iRobot has a $50 million dollar contract from the military as part of the Future Combat Systems push.

And finally, for all you robot-hopefuls out there, Angle says, " I know a bunch of venture funds that have money set aside for robots and are looking for good companies."

Happy robot hacking!