LG Hom-Bot Robot Vacuum Cleaner Review

Electronics giant LG just released a new robot vacuum, and we had the chance to test it in the same labs where we've put best-sellers from iRobot and Neato through their paces.

While LG has sold robot vacuums worldwide for more than five years, the LG VR65502LV Hom-Bot (MSRP $749) is the company's first foray into the U.S. market. It features a square design for improved corner cleaning, two cameras for obstacle sensing and room mapping, and seven customizable cleaning modes.

We spent a week with it, and found that LG has created a worthy competitor to some of the more established names on the market. The Hom-Bot not only looks great, but it has excellent dirt pickup, is easy to use, and can even clean tall carpet—a task a lot of the competition struggles with. However, it lacks some of the basic features that less-expensive models boast.

Clean look, clean house

If you ascribe to the KonMari method of living simply—as outlined in Marie Kondo's best-selling bookThe Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up—you may have reservations about buying a new gadget that will always live on your floor.

However, the Hom-Bot may still fit with your style. Its handsome, ruby-red exterior has won design awards, and with over an hour of battery life, this LG can easily cover an entire open-concept floorplan.

Unlike other robot vacuums, you don't even have to tip it over to empty the dustbin. And when—not if—the vacuum gets interrupted, it automatically picks up cleaning where it left off. That's easy for the Hom-Bot, since it has a learning mode that memorizes obstacles in a room in order to avoid them during future cleaning sessions.

We're a bit puzzled by a few of the Hom-Bot's features: Yes, it lets the user choose from different cleaning patterns, but it lacks any virtual barriers. Unlike iRobot, with its Virtual Walls, there's no way to keep the Hom-Bot from exploring your whole house. That's a pretty serious omission in a vacuum that costs this much. If you want to keep the Hom-Bot from bumping into your dog bowl or out of the playroom, there's no way to make that happen.

Test results

Over the course of one cleaning session in our robot vacuum test lab, the Hom-Bot suctioned up 10.3 grams of dirt. That might not sound like much, but since you can set the Hom-Bot to clean daily, that could add up to around 72 grams of dirt each week.

It doesn't matter where that dirt is hiding, either. The LG Hom-Bot joins a distinguished group of robot vacuums that weren't tripped up by a high-pile carpet. As you can see in our video of the test, the Hom-Bot reached the summit and got back down again without the need of a sherpa.

The only downside? It made loud screeching noises during the climb, likely due to the automatic engagement of the high-powered Turbo function. Normally, we wouldn't harp on sound quality, since the best practice is to run your robot vacuum while you're out of the house. However, since LG advertises how quiet its machine is, the noise is worth noting.

We should also mention that we observed the Hom-Bot getting caught on an obstacle meant to simulate a transition between two different kinds of flooring. Eventually, we had to step in and free it.

Wait and see

This is an attractive robot vacuum with good cleaning performance and innovative technology. However, a $749 sale price and an odd list of features might make the LG Hom-Bot a tough sell for some consumers. In fact, despite its many benefits, the lack of any virtual barriers is what keeps the VR65502LV from earning our highest recommendation.

Its dirt pickup is neck-and-neck with our top rated robot vacuum, a Neato that features a WiFi connection and barriers, and sells for $699.

If you're on the fence, we'd wait a few months until a new generation of robot vacuums debut. In addition to hotly anticipated models from Dyson and Panasonic, new LG and Samsung robot vacs will be able to memorize your home's floorplan, travel from room to room, and double as security cameras.

Until then, we're impressed with LG's debut offering, and look forward to what else the company's robots can do.

Google beats Oracle in $9 billion Android trial

A U.S. jury handed Google (GOOGL.O) a major victory on Thursday in a long-running copyright battle with Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) over Android software used to run most of the world's smartphones.

The jury unanimously upheld claims by Google that its use of Oracle's Java development platform to create Android was protected under the fair-use provision of copyright law, bringing trial to a close without Oracle winning any of the $9 billion in damages it requested.

Oracle said it saw many grounds to appeal and would do so. "We strongly believe that Google developed Android by illegally copying core Java technology to rush into the mobile device market," Oracle General Counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement.

Alphabet Inc's Google in a statement called the verdict "a win for the Android ecosystem, for the Java programming community, and for software developers who rely on open and free programming languages to build innovative consumer products.”

The trial was closely watched by software developers, who feared an Oracle victory could spur more software copyright lawsuits.

Google relied on high-profile witnesses like Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt to convince jurors it used Java to create its own innovative product, rather than steal another company’s intellectual property, as Oracle claimed.

In the retrial at U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Oracle said Google's Android operating system violated its copyright on parts of Java. Alphabet's Google unit said it should be able to use Java without paying a fee under fair use.

A trial in 2012 ended in a deadlocked jury.

Shares of Oracle and Alphabet were little-changed in after-hours trade following the verdict.

After the first trial, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the elements of Java at issue were not eligible for copyright protection at all. A federal appeals court disagreed in 2014, ruling that computer language that connects programs - known as application programming interfaces, or APIs - can be copyrighted.

A flood of copyright lawsuits has failed to materialize in the two years since that federal appeals court ruling, suggesting Oracle's lawsuit will not ultimately have a wide impact on the sector.

Under U.S. copyright law, "fair use" allows limited use of material without acquiring permission from the rights holder for purposes such as research.

During retrial, Oracle attorneys deemed Google's defenses the "fair-use excuse."

One Hulk Hogan sex tape, two billionaires -- and an epic free speech battle

SAN FRANCISCO - Billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is calling upon media outlets to support Gawker's effort to appeal a $140 million judgement that could bankrupt the media company.

Omidyar's First Look Media is seeking to round up amicus briefs in support of Gawker, which recently lost a lawsuit brought by pro wrestler Hulk Hogan, who claimed his privacy was invaded when the site posted a video of him having sex with a friend's wife in 2012.

On Thursday, Gawker confirmed reports that it was looking into putting itself up for sale.

"The possibility that Gawker may have to post a bond for $50 million or more just to be able to pursue its right to appeal the jury’s verdict raises serious concerns about press freedom," Lynn Oberlander, First Look's general counsel, said in a statement obtained by USA TODAY. "To be clear, this is about press freedom principles upon which our company was founded, and about which we care deeply."

In doing so, Omidyar is throwing down the gauntlet before a fellow tech titan, investorPeter Thiel, who on Wednesday confirmed reports that he had funded Hogan's legal effort to the tune of $10 million.

A New York Post article that first reported First Look's amicus news Friday quoted an unnamed source saying there was "bad blood" between the two billionaires, given Omidyar's liberal bent and Thiel's libertarian stance that has him supporting Donald Trump.

On Friday, Omidyar tweeted "I've never met Peter, respect his work as vc, and obv disagree on Trump and Press. 'There is no 'bad blood.'"

In bankrolling Hogan, Thiel cited a his longtime animosity toward Gawker, which had reported that he was gay and had written what Thiel considered to be unsavory things about fellow Silicon Valley friends.

In an interview with The New York Times late Wednesday, Thiel said "It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence. I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest.”

Thiel, who is worth $2.7 billion, was a co-founder of PayPal, which was purchased by eBay in 2002.

Omidyar, who is worth $7.7 billion, has long been passionate about journalism and issues of press freedom. He helped fund Spotlight, the Oscar-winning story of Boston Globe reporters uncovering pedophile priests.

Oberlander notes that First Look and other media outlets - including CNN and the Associated Press - intervened early in the Hogan case in order to "seek access to the courtroom and to unseal some of the myriad documents in the case that had been kept from the public."

After a jury denied Gawker founder Nick Denton's motion for a new trial Wednesday, First Look decided to step forward and appeal to fellow media outlets in an effort to turn the issue into a First Amendment rights case.

On Thursday, Denton penned a long online letter to Thiel. "Now you show yourself as a thin-skinned billionaire who, despite all the success and public recognition that a person could dream of, seethes over criticism and plots behind the scenes to tie up his opponents in litigation he can afford better than they," he wrote.

On Friday, Denton took to CNBC to blast Thiel's "vindictive" campaign, and cautioned about the "power of the billionaire class." Although he now has one in his corner.

Infections resist 'last antibiotic' in US

The first case of an infection that resists the antibiotic of last resort - colistin - has been detected in the US.

The 48-year old woman from Pennsylvania recovered and the infection was vulnerable to other antibiotics.

However, colistin is hugely symbolic as it is used when other drugs fail and officials warned the world was now reaching "the end of the road" for antibiotics.

Colistin resistance was first discovered in China at the end of 2015.

The study sparked concern around the world, and intensive testing rapidly discovered bugs that can resist colistin in Europe and Asia.

Now data from the US has identified the first case in a patient, who had a urinary-tract infection, as well as colistin-resistant bacteria in farm animals and meat on supermarket shelves.

It is not clear where the infection came from as the patient had not travelled recently and colistin is not widely used in the US.

Bleak future

The DNA that gives bacteria resistance to colistin - the mcr-1 gene - can spread rapidly between species.

The concern is that colistin resistance will now hook-up with other forms of antibiotic resistance to create infections that cannot be treated.

Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said: "The more we look at drug resistance, the more concerned we are.

"The medicine cabinet is empty for some patients, it is the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently."

However, Dr Beth Bell, also from the CDC, said in an interview: "Luckily haven't seen actual bacteria that are resistant to every single antibiotic."

Commenting on the reports Dr Nasia Safdar, from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, said: "The results are very concerning.

"It is almost inevitable that more cases will come to light. It's just a matter of how quickly things spread. With carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, soon after the initial description it became fairly widespread and not just in the US but globally.

"It wouldn't be a stretch to say that we are towards the end of effective antimicrobial therapy for antibiotic resistant bacteria."