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Uber and Waymo settle lawsuit in a giant victory for Uber
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
10 Feb 2018
In a shocker, it was announced that Uber and Waymo (Google/Alphabet) have settled their famous lawsuit for around $245 million in Uber stock. No cash, and Uber agrees it won't use any Google hardware ...
Why ethical robots might not be such a good idea after all
Alan Winfield
08 Feb 2018
Last week my colleague Dieter Vanderelst presented our paper: The Dark Side of Ethical Robots at AIES 2018 in New Orleans....
Gallery of photos from CES 2018, and other news
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
29 Jan 2018
I have created a gallery in Google Photos with some of the more interesting items I saw at CES, with the bulk of them being related to robocars, robotic delivery and transportation....
Sewing a mechanical future
Oliver Mitchell
23 Jan 2018
The Financial Times reported earlier this year that one of the largest clothing manufacturers, Hong Kong-based Crystal Group, proclaimed robotics could not compete with the cost and quality of manual...
Best practices in designing effective roadmaps for robotics innovation
Hallie Siegel and Lenka Pitonakova
22 Jan 2018
In the past decade, countries and regions around the globe have developed strategic roadmaps to guide investment and development of robotic technology. Roadmaps from the US, South Korea, Japan and EU ...
The GM/Cruise robocar interior is refreshingly spartan
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
22 Jan 2018
GM revealed photos of what they say is the production form of their self-driving car based on the Chevy Bolt and Cruise software. They say it will be released next year, making it almost surely the fi...
Tons of LIDARs at CES 2018
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
17 Jan 2018
When it comes to robocars, new LIDAR products were the story of CES 2018. Far more companies showed off LIDAR products than can succeed, with a surprising variety of approaches. CES is now the 5th lar...
CES 2018 recap: Out of the dark ages
Oliver Mitchell
15 Jan 2018
As close to a quarter million people descended on a city of six hundred thousand, CES 2018 became the perfect metaphor for the current state of modern society. Unfazed by floods, blackouts, and trans...
A round up of robotics and AI ethics: part 1 principles
Alan Winfield
09 Jan 2018
This blogpost is a round up of the various sets of ethical principles of robotics and AI that have been proposed to date, ordered by date of first publication. The principles are presented here (in fu...
Top Robocar news of 2017
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
04 Jan 2018
Here are the biggest Robocar stories of 2017....
Drones, volcanoes and the ‘computerisation’ of the Earth
The Conversation
29 Dec 2017
By Adam Fish
The eruption of the Agung volcano in Bali, Indonesia has been devastating, particularly for the 55,000 local people who have had to leave their homes and move into shelters. It has als...
An emotional year for machines
Oliver Mitchell
29 Dec 2017
Two thousand seventeen certainly has been an emotional year for mankind. While homo sapiens continue to yell at Alexa and Siri, the actuality of people’s willingness to pursue virtual relationsh...
Warner Brothers and Intel experiment with in-robocar entertainment. Is that a good idea?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
07 Dec 2017
Intel and Warner made a splash at the LA Auto Show announcing how Warner will develop entertainment for viewing while riding in robotaxis. It's not just movies to watch, their hope is to produce somet...
DARPA challenge mystery solved and how to handle Robocar failures
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
01 Dec 2017
A small mystery from Robocar history was resolved recently, and revealed at the DARPA grand challenge reunion at CMU....
Uber buys 24,000 Volvos, trolley problems get scarier, and liability
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
29 Nov 2017
Uber and Volvo announced an agreement where Uber will buy, in time, up to 24,000 specially built Volvo XC90s which will run Uber's self-driving software and, presumably, offer rides to Uber customers....
Robocar/LIDAR news and video of the Apple car
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
13 Nov 2017
Robocar news is fast and furious these days. I certainly don't cover it all, but will point to stories that have some significance. Plus, to tease you, here's a clip from my 4K video of the new Apple ...
Waymo deploys with no human safety driver oversight
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
09 Nov 2017
In a major milestone for robocars, Waymo has announced they will deploy in Phoenix with no human safety drivers behind the wheel. Until now, almost all robocars out there have only gone out on public ...
Three concerns about granting citizenship to robot Sophia
Hussein Abbass and The Conversation
02 Nov 2017
I was surprised to hear that a robot named Sophia was granted citizenship by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia....
Brain surgery: The robot efficacy test?
Oliver Mitchell
02 Nov 2017
The internet hummed last week with reports that “Humans Still Make Better Surgeons Than Robots.” Stanford University Medical Center set off the tweetstorm with its seemingly scathing repo...
The senate’s automated driving bill could squash state authority
Bryant Walker Smith
31 Oct 2017
My previous post on the House and Senate automated driving bills (HB 3388 and SB 1885) concluded by noting that, in addition to the federal government, states and the municipalities within them also p...
Robocars will make traffic worse before it gets better
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
25 Oct 2017
Many websites paint a very positive picture of the robocar future. And it is positive, but far from perfect. One problem I worry about in the short term is the way robocars are going to make traffic w...
The five senses of robotics
Oliver Mitchell
24 Oct 2017
Healthy humans take for granted their five senses. In order to mold metal into perceiving machines, it requires a significant amount of engineers and capital. Already, we have handed over many of our ...
Could we build a Blade Runner-style ‘replicant’?
The new Blade Runner sequel will return us to a world where sophisticated androids made with organic body parts can match the strength and emotions of their human creators. As someone who builds biolo...
Robocar-only highways are not quite so nice an idea as expected
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
11 Oct 2017
Recently Madrona Ventures, in partnership with Craig Mundie (former Microsoft CTO) released a white paper proposing an autonomous vehicle corridor between Seattle and Vancouver on I-5 and BC Highway 9...
GM accepts all liability in robocars, and other news
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
11 Oct 2017
General Motors announced this week that they would “take full responsibility” if a crash takes place during an autonomous driving trip. This follows a pledge to do the same made some time ago by D...
Robotics, the traditional path and new approaches
Víctor Mayoral Vilches
20 Sep 2017
Robotics, like many other technologies, suffered from an inflated set of expectations resulting in a decrease of the developments and results during the 90s. Over the last years, several groups though...
The importance of research reproducibility in robotics
Fabio Bonsignorio
20 Sep 2017
As highlighted in a previous post, despite the fact that robotics is increasingly regarded as a 'Science', as shown by the launch of new journals such as Science Robotics, reproducibility of experimen...
New NHTSA Robocar regulations are a major, but positive, reversal
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
15 Sep 2017
NHTSA released their latest draft robocar regulations just a week after the U.S. House passed a new regulatory regime and the senate started working on its own. The proposed regulations preempt state ...
NTSB Tesla crash report and new NHTSA regulations to come
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
13 Sep 2017
The NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) has released a preliminary report on the fatal Tesla crash with the full report expected later this week. The report is much less favourable to autopilo...
Planning for hurricanes and other disasters with robocars
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
08 Sep 2017
How will robocars fare in a disaster, like Harvey in Houston, Irma, or the tsunamis in Japan or Indonesia, or a big Earthquake, or a fire, or 9/11, or a war?...
Robots won’t steal our jobs if we put workers at center of AI revolution
The Conversation
02 Sep 2017
by Thomas Kochan, MIT Sloan School of Management and Lee Dyer, Cornell University
The technologies driving artificial intelligence are expanding exponentially, leading many technology experts and f...
Those amazing flying machines
Oliver Mitchell
16 Aug 2017
Last year, Intel partnered with Lady Gaga on the Super Bowl Halftime Show to showcase its latest aerial technology called “Shooting Star.” Intel did a reprise performance of its Shooting S...
Many different approaches to Robocar Mapping
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
01 Aug 2017
Almost all robocars use maps to drive. Not the basic maps you find in your phone navigation app, but more detailed maps that help them understand where they are on the road, and where they should go. ...
Federal regulations pass next hurdle
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
21 Jul 2017
This week's news is preliminary, but a U.S. house committee panel passed some new federal regulations which suggest sweeping change in the US regulatory approach to robocars....
News and commentary from AUVSI/TRB Automated Vehicle Symposium 2017
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
18 Jul 2017
In San Francisco, I’m just back from the annual Automated Vehicle Symposium, co-hosted by the AUVSI (a commercial unmanned vehicle organization) and the Transportation Research Board, a governme...
Singapore: An autonomous innovation center
Oliver Mitchell
16 Jul 2017
Jim Robinson of RRE Ventures said it best last month at the Silicon Dragon Conference when comparing Silicon Valley to New York, “There are two kinds of centers that have a lot of startups and t...
