Ever wish you could dispatch a robot to grab you a beer? That day might soon be here, thanks to an as-yet-unannounced decision by iRobot. In early July the company will post instructions for controlling its Roomba vacuum cleaner via the built-in serial port, so programmers can modify it however they want – from equipping it with a camera to, yes, adding an arm and training it to retrieve brewskis. iRobot hopes the move will foster the development of Roomba accessories – like the ecosystem of add-ons that has sprung up around the iPod – thus driving sales. Link.