As we mentioned earlier this week, iRobot is one of four companies representing Boston in the elite Sandbox at the Google I/O conference this week in San Francisco. iRobot’s CEO, Colin Angle, is also a featured speaker at the event, giving his keynote yesterday. While we unfortunately were not there to listen in person, his talking points are abuzz in the tech world. Why? Angle spoke about a new, intermediary breed of robots — and how tablets are key to igniting them.

Today iRobot issued an official press release, formally announcing part of what was revealed during Angle’s talk: iRobot has teamed with Google to create Android applications for its Ava mobile robotics platform.

Ava is short for “avatar,” and iRobot is branding it as the first “app-ready” robot. Ava solves all of the hard problems of robotics (things like mapping, path planning, obstacle detection, etc.), then offers a platform for developers to build apps that control the robot through the tablet (which you can think about as its brain).

On stage at Google I/O Angle offered Rosie from the Jetsons as an example of the type of robot breed iRobot aims to ignite. He envisions apps built on Ava enabling everything from replacing your waiter and your receptionist to being in your home and enabling virtual doctor visits. Ava will be on sale and available to developers later this year, with a business centric version in store for 2012.

“Ava is the first app-ready robot. By tapping into an almost limitless supply of Android-based apps, Ava is poised to revolutionize how people communicate and deliver information through remote presence and other means,” Angle explained. “With the right ideas, Ava can also revolutionize how people live both at home and in the workplace.”

During Angle’s talk at Google I/O he explained the current dynamics happening in the robotics space. There are high-end, expensive robots (those like our absolute favorite, Big Dog, created by Boston Dynamics) and very low-end solutions such as iRobot’s own Roomba vacuum. Ava represents the beginning of an intermediate category of robots, one where tablets will enable the market to develop quickly.

Ava was first unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where the company hoped to lure in an initial stable of developers to begin building applications to Ava. At that time, however, an iPad was being used with Ava. Angle told CNET yesterday that Ava is “tablet agnostic” but that “right now, Android has what we need,” citing the Google Voice technology as being one of the main reasons for this (timely, given Apple’s interest in Boston’s Nuance Communications’ voice technology).

What does Google have to say about the power of Ava?

“We’ve been working with the Ava platform for the past several months and are impressed with its capabilities,” said Andy Rubin, SVP of Mobile at Google. “We have seen incredible contributions from app developers for Android devices over the past few years. Robotic technologies like Ava represent an exciting next step for this community.”

Below are two other great reads related to iRobot and Ava, and we also recommend you check out this video taken by an attendee at Google I/O speaking with an iRobot representative:

The fantastic photo above of Angle on stage with Ava at Google I/O is credited to Stephen Shankland of CNET.

You can read more stories on Boston startups, technology and innovation at https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/inno