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Can I trust my robot? And should my robot trust me?
Riccardo Bevilacqua
07 Apr 2016
If we are serious about long-term human presence in space, such as manned bases on the moon or Mars, we must figure out how to streamline human-robot interactions....
47 reports dissect and examine the robot industry
Frank Tobe
04 Apr 2016
The robotics industry has graduated to be big business -- at least for research firms. 47 different reports on subjects ranging from broad to very drilled-down views of the industry are analyzed and...
March fundings, acquisitions, IPOs and failures
Frank Tobe
04 Apr 2016
Funding for robotics startup companies rose dramatically in 2015 reaching record highs in deals and dollars. CB Insights, a VC database provider, reported similar findings as seen in their quarterly f...
SVR Case Studies: Adept’s versatile mobile service platform
Silicon Valley Robotics
30 Mar 2016
Interview with Michael Oitzman, Sr. Product Line Manager, Adept Mobile Robots
courtesy of Tanya Anandan, for A3 Association for Advancing Automation
(edited for clarity)
What are the current ...
Robots grow up: Building the emotional machine
Angelica Lim and Footnote
29 Mar 2016
From the sci-fi classic “Bladerunner” to the recent films “Her” and “Ex Machina,” pop culture is filled with stories demonstrating our simultaneous fascination with and fear of artificial ...
Stop talking about bringing jobs back from China
Frank Tobe
27 Mar 2016
Ben Casselman, writing on the website FiveThirtyEight, says that manufacturing jobs are never coming back. He warns candidates to not inflame voters with empty promises and provides facts to prov...
Calculating why we should make a lot more robocars
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
24 Mar 2016
I frequently read that people claim one effect of robocars will be car share (when they work as taxis) and fewer cars being made (because most cars stay idle 95% of the time) — which is good news ...
Google puts Boston Dynamics up for sale
Frank Tobe
22 Mar 2016
The maker of advanced humanoid and 4-legged robots (BigDog and Atlas), Boston Dynamics, is up for sale. According to the Financial Times, "this is one of those discordant moments that makes you questi...
5 innovation challenges in materials transport
Clearpath Robotics
18 Mar 2016
by: Meghan Hennessey
Walk into any manufacturing facility today. Forklifts and AGVs may be in operation serving specific parts of the manufacturing floor, but you’ll also see hundreds of people a...
Survey shows public attitude towards robotics generally positive, but evokes mixed feelings
Michael Szollosy
17 Mar 2016
The British Science Association released a survey about British public’s attitudes toward robotics and AI. Their headlines state:
60% of people think that the use of robots or programmes equipp...
SVR Case Studies: Hardware may be hard, but strategic investing can make it smart
Silicon Valley Robotics
15 Mar 2016
by Ekta Sahasi, Vice President at Konica Minolta Business Innovation Center
and Greg Lok, Business Strategy Lead at Konica Minolta Business Innovation Center
After years of flying under the ventur...
What the past of robotics law says about its future
One day, robots will present difficult legal challenges. This seems to be the consensus among commentators. And who am I to disagree? I have myself argued, right here on the digital pages of Slate, t...
Indego joins Ekso with FDA exoskeleton approvals
Frank Tobe
14 Mar 2016
Indego is the result of 10 years of development by engineers at Vanderbilt University, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In 2012 it was licensed to Parker Hann...
Replacing public transit at night for Uber and Lyft
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
12 Mar 2016
I have a big article forthcoming on the future of public transit. I believe that with the robocar (and van) it moves from being scheduled, route-based mass transit to on-demand, ad-hoc route medium an...
American law needs a reboot when it comes to robots
Hallie Siegel
09 Mar 2016
Nearly 60 years of American case law indicate that while robot technology has been developing by leaps and bounds, the courts’ concept of robots is confused and largely stuck in the past. If we ar...
Collaborative robots are broadening their marketplaces
Frank Tobe
08 Mar 2016
Universal Robots, the Danish manufacturer of a line of collaborative robots (also called "co-bots"), recently published financial statements which provide valuable insights into the growth potential ...
How can we use drones in the humanitarian and health sector?
Louis Potter
04 Mar 2016
Ever since I watched the exceptional 2013 TED talk by Raffaello D’Andrea on the athletic power of quadcopters I have been fascinated by the possibilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or, as t...
Why Google’s crash is a good thing
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
04 Mar 2016
Reports released reveal that one of Google’s Gen-2 vehicles (the Lexus) has a fender-bender (with a bus) with some responsibility assigned to the system. This is the first crash of this type — all...
SVR Case Studies: Lessons for robotics from enterprise computing
Michael Harries and Silicon Valley Robotics
03 Mar 2016
Many advances in our technologies occur through borrowing capabilities from one field to progress another. Our technological universe is built from a web of interrelated advances that push one another...
Telepresence has come a long way, where do we go from here?
Michael Savoie
03 Mar 2016
In our final post for this series, we'll talk about the future of telepresence. For most robots telepresence is just the beginning, a means to an end. Many of the robots in this series are meant ...
Could we make a moral machine?
Alan Winfield
02 Mar 2016
Could we make a moral machine? A robot capable of choosing or moderating its actions on the basis of ethical rules?
This was how I opened my IdeasLab talk at the World Economic Forum 2016. Th...
White House economic report looks to robotics for the future
Andra Keay and Silicon Valley Robotics
23 Feb 2016
For the first time, robotics was featured in the annual Economic Report of the President. The hefty 435 page report from the President and the Council of Economic Advisors was released to Congress on ...
NHTSA redefines “driver” of self-driving car
Frank Tobe
13 Feb 2016
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) took an important step towards interpreting safety standards in ways that could make self-driving cars a reality for the public: it said that...
First look at 2015 statistics on industrial robots from the IFR report
Frank Tobe
13 Feb 2016
A first look at numbers from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) report on industrial robots shows that worldwide robot sales grew again in 2015, and were 15% more than 2014. Explosive grow...
540 little robots and 29 drones celebrate Chinese New Year
Frank Tobe
10 Feb 2016
In a TV spectacle celebrating the Chinese New Year and seen by more than 640 million viewers, 540 Chinese-made robots danced to a song sung by a Chinese superstar and 29 neon-colored drones flew in u...
Could shallow underpasses be express tunnels for small robocars?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
09 Feb 2016
I recently read a report of a plan for a new type of intersection being developed in Malaysia and I felt it had some interesting applications for robocars....
Robot golfer hits hole-in-one
Frank Tobe
08 Feb 2016
At the Phoenix Open PGA Golf Tournament held February 4-7 in Scottsdale Arizona, Golf Laboratories, an independent golf testing facility for clubs, shafts and ball testing based in San Diego...
iRobot sells off defense & security division
Frank Tobe
04 Feb 2016
In a transaction valued at $45 million, iRobot has sold its Defense and Security division to Arlington Capital Partners. Sean Bielat, who takes over as the CEO, says the new company wil...
To err is human: raising the bar on AI
Michael Szollosy
01 Feb 2016
Last week, media outlets reported about the latest 'sure sign' of an imminent robopocalypse. Google-backed DeepMind created an AI sophisticated enough to beat a human champion in the Chinese ...
Turning the lens on robotics reporting: An interview with New York Times technology reporter John Markoff
Hallie Siegel
28 Jan 2016
If you are working in the field of robotics or AI, you may be used to fielding calls from journalists wanting to better understand the technology. But not all journalists are created equal. Pulitzer-P...
Personalizing telepresence in service robots
Michael Savoie
26 Jan 2016
In our previous post we looked at socially engaging robots and how they are helping to break down barriers to remote presence. Another area on the fringe of telepresence is service robots. These rob...
The inevitability of the global march toward self-driving vehicles
Frank Tobe
22 Jan 2016
Perhaps the biggest upcoming robotics-driven economic and social change will be the arrival of fully autonomous (self-driving) vehicles. Imagine a world full of self driving cars, planes and boats ...
IBM, Intel describe experiential future for human-machine interaction
Frank Tobe
21 Jan 2016
In keynote presentations at CES in Las Vegas last week, CEOs from IBM and Intel talked about disruptive changes in how consumers and businesses are transacting and interacting with their purchases....
#CES2016: Noise, hype, hustle … and business as usual
Frank Tobe
21 Jan 2016
CES is truly a global technology event: 3,800 exhibitors (of which 500 were startups); 2.47 million sq feet of exhibit space; 170,000 industry professionals (of which 50,000 were from more than 160 co...
Could robotaxis be the answer to electric car depreciation?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
21 Jan 2016
I’ve been electric car shopping, but one thing has stood out as a big concern. Many electric cars are depreciating fast, and it may get even faster. I think part of this is due to the fact that elec...
Toyota Research gets Kuffner, and Google gets Brondmo
Frank Tobe
18 Jan 2016
At a press conference last week at CES, Toyota, led by Gill Pratt of DARPA fame and now CEO of Toyota Research Institute (TRI), informed the world what Toyota intended to do with it's billion dollar...
