Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. Just a few years ago, iRobot, best known as the maker of the Roomba, was riding high, with annual ...

It would come as a surprise to more people than you think that "roomba" isn't the universal term for a robot vacuum. It is, in fact, a capital "R" that denotes Roomba as a proper noun rather than a ...