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Google Lunar X Prize leader board: Barcelona Moon Team schedules launch ahead of Astrobotic, Moon Express, and Team Indus
Robert Morris
09 Dec 2013
The private space race is on! With the $40M at stake from the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) leading other private and pseudo-private investment, this is a real race. I, for one, love racing. By foot, ...
Jeff Bezos reaches for tip of UAS iceberg
Frank Tobe
05 Dec 2013
On Sunday, Charlie Rose from CBS News 60 Minutes, interviewed Jeff Bezos about what is next for Amazon, the world's largest online retailer with more than 225 million customers.
Volume can reach 30...
Noisy imitation speeds up group learning
Alan Winfield
03 Dec 2013
Broadly speaking there are two kinds of learning: individual learning and social learning. Individual learning means learning something entirely on your own, without reference to anyone else who might...
8 robotic toys for the holidays (2013)
Frank Tobe
25 Nov 2013
Frank Tobe's holiday gift ideas for robot fans....
Two ears, one mouth (or, Somatic analytics, and a talk with Dr. Skip Rizzo)
Mark Stephen Meadows
20 Nov 2013
This article returns to the thread of the last few months by looking at how robots can measure our emotions and body language.
My aunt, a Tennessee tobacco grower, used to remind me that God gave m...
Ethical robots: Some technical and ethical challenges
Alan Winfield
19 Nov 2013
I've been talking about robot ethics for several years now, but that's mostly been about how we roboticists must be responsible and mindful of the societal impact of our creations. Two years ago I w...
How I helped create Robo-Stox, a new stock index for the robotics community
Frank Tobe
18 Nov 2013
Photo: Nasdaq
On Tuesday, a sleek robotic arm rang the closing bell of the Nasdaq stock exchange. It was the first time a robot performed the task.
The event celebrated the launch of Robo-Stox, a...
We the Geeks: Whitehouse hangouts celebrate robots, maker culture and more
Robohub Editors
15 Nov 2013
Last spring the Whitehouse launched We the Geeks, a series of Google Hangouts meant to highlight the future of American science, technology, and innovation. The latest hangout, playfully titled Don't...
What were the highlights at IROS/iREX this year?
RBI Editors
13 Nov 2013
Photo credit: Taichi on Wikimedia Commons.
Robohub team members just returned from an exciting trip to Tokyo, where we attended the 2013 IROS conference and the concurrent iREX robot expo. With so ma...
Lynne Parker on “What were the highlights at IROS/iREX this year?”
Lynne Parker
13 Nov 2013
I found the plenary speeches at IROS to be especially interesting. Marc Raibert gave an entertaining talk on the robots being developed at Boston Dynamics. It's encouraging to see that robots are beco...
Frank Tobe on “What were the highlights at IROS/iREX this year?”
Frank Tobe
13 Nov 2013
Two images remain in my mind from IROS 2013 last week in Tokyo. The respect for Professor Emeritus Mori and his charting of the uncanny valley in relation to robotics, and the need for a Watson-type s...
Andra Keay on “What were the highlights at IROS/iREX this year?”
Andra Keay
13 Nov 2013
For me, the highlight of IROS was the Uncanny Valley special session, although the sheer size of the IROS conference and the parallel iRex industrial and service robot expo also gave much food for tho...
UAV innovation is in the Cloud; 3 precision Ag innovations to watch for in 2014
Ernest Earon
12 Nov 2013
Did you know that the world’s population is set to increase from seven billion people to more than nine billion in the next 40 years? In order to meet this growing demand, agricultural producers wil...
From precision farming to autonomous farming: How commodity technologies enable revolutionary impact
Jeremy H. Brown
11 Nov 2013
The popular conception of farming as low-tech is woefully out of date. Modern farmers are high-tech operators: They use GIS software to plan their fields, GPS to guide field operations, and auto-steer...
Air, water, energy and food in a nutshell: Space exploration as driver for sustainable robotic agriculture
Nikolaus Correll
04 Nov 2013
University of Colorado's robotic plant growth is demonstrated at the Kennedy Space Center. Source: NASA.
Targeting a sustainable presence of humans in outer space will require solving air, water, ...
Robotics Expo 2013, Moscow
Frank Tobe
02 Nov 2013
The bleak autumn Moscow day didn’t seem to have dampened the enthusiasm of the crowds of people making the journey to the 2013 Moscow Robotics (and advanced technologies) Expo http://robot-ex.ru/en...
Down on the farm with drones
Patrick Egan
29 Oct 2013
Photo credit: Patrick Egan.
There are bushels of folks out there now spending money and putting time in finding niches for unmanned systems that already exist. You may be saying, isn’t that what we...
Beaming-in to RoboBusiness 2013
Frank Tobe
27 Oct 2013
RoboBusiness 2013, held last week at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley, was a revitalized example of previous RoboBusiness events. Throughout the three-day event, there was renewed e...
A close(ish) encounter with Voyager 2
Alan Winfield
27 Oct 2013
It is summer 1985. I'm visiting Caltech with colleague and PhD supervisor Rod Goodman. Rod has just been appointed in the Electrical Engineering Department at Caltech, and I'm still on a high from ...
RoboBusiness: Day Two
Robert Morris
26 Oct 2013
On a rare overcast day in San Jose, RoboBusiness got down to business with keynotes and the general exhibition in full swing. The morning held keynote speakers, breakouts in the afternoon, and then ...
Lay of the land: Unmanned systems coming to commercial agriculture
Rich Tuttle
25 Oct 2013
Yamaha is testing spraying vineyards in Napa Valley through a COA with the FAA. Photo courtesy Yamaha Corp.
With the global market for unmanned systems in agriculture on the rise, companies that ma...
Transformational robotics and its application to agriculture
John Payne
25 Oct 2013
No, this is not about shapeshifting robots, come to save or destroy Earth. It is about transforming the contexts within which robotic technologies are applied, and about practicing robotics with the i...
Matching technology to value creation: Drones in agriculture
Robert Morris
24 Oct 2013
‘Drones in agriculture’ has been a topic hot lately, but is it a real business?
As a former Army UAV platoon leader and a current founder of an aerial data collection start-up, I believe so, bu...
Harvey: A working robot for container crops
Jospeh Jones
23 Oct 2013
Two robots follow boundary markers on either side of an irrigation pipe. Photo credit: Harvest Automation.
In mid-2012, four HV-100 robots from Harvest Automation achieved an elusive milestone in rob...
Robo-Stox: A dream come true
Frank Tobe
23 Oct 2013
Throughout my 35-year career in the computer business, I always read and thought about what disruptive technology was ahead. When I had an IBM mainframe, I was looking at the DEC mini-computers and ev...
DARC talks about the elephants in the room – freight planes and fighters
Andra Keay
23 Oct 2013
It was fitting that Missy Cummings had the last word at the DARC drones and aerial robotics conference in NY. As an ex-TopGun navy pilot who saw drones taking over her job, she was the one to talk abo...
Ten lessons for farm drones
Chris Anderson
22 Oct 2013
3D Robotics's Vice President of Sales and Marketing John Cherbini prepares to launch a plane at Small Vines Wines in Sebastopol, Ca Sept. 13, 2013. The plane can help day-to-day operations on a farm...
Selected start-ups from Demo Fall 2013, Silicon Valley
Frank Tobe
19 Oct 2013
DEMO describes itself as the launchpad for emerging technology and trends. The DEMO Fall 2013 Conference was produced by IDG, the publishing giant of Computerworld, PC World, MacWorld, etc. I went to ...
Start-up profile: Knightscope
Frank Tobe
19 Oct 2013
What happens when you mix big data analytics, a policeman, homeland security, some funding from an insurance company and robotics?
You get Knightscope, a Santa Clara, California start-up developin...
Robotic cornucopia: Robohub focuses on the state-of-the-art and the future of agricultural robotics
Hallie Siegel
18 Oct 2013
With an ever-increasing need to feed the world's hungry, the agricultural sector has long been an important boon to the field of robotics: the sector's widespread acceptance and use of automation tec...
25 women in robotics you need to know about (2013)
In celebration of Ada Lovelace Day, we've compiled a short list of some women in robotics that everyone should know about. There are so many many more that we're already looking forward to featuring t...
Is open source a good business model for robotics?
RBI Editors
09 Oct 2013
Open source vs. proprietary software is an age old question. Since the advent of robotics, we also have the question of open source hardware.
In academia, where robotics researchers look to open so...
Robert Morris on “Is open source a good business model for robotics?”
Robert Morris
09 Oct 2013
The premise of this question is that robotics companies are manufacturers and that there is choice between an open source and closed source business model. Robotics companies are best thought of as ...
