Hobbyist robots are still too dumb. We're still seeing battery-motor-wheels, maybe with a few sonars. I had one of those 25 years ago. CPUs have advanced only from the Basic Stamp to the Atmel AVR, often in Arduno cult form. This is too lame for 2010.
A logical next step is to get visual Simultaneous Location and Mapping ("SLAM") onto hobbyist robots. Then they know where they are and what the environment is like. A cell phone with a camera has enough CPU power for this. The published papers are out there. Willow Robotics gives out some SLAM code.
Anybody doing this?
John Nagle