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Top ten things I learned at Willow Garage
Steve Cousins
25 Feb 2014
10. Focus Focus Focus. When I started at Willow Garage, we had two projects (an autonomous car and an autonomous boat) and were planning to grow to 60 people, and I thought we needed to “round out ...
The robots behind your Internet shopping addiction: How your wallet is driving retail automation
Erin Rapacki
25 Feb 2014
When you're shopping for the best online deals you're probably not thinking much about the massive distribution network required to bring that pair of shoes to your doorstep. Is your quest for the bes...
From disembodied bytes to robots that think and act like humans
Colin Allen and Footnote
25 Feb 2014
When IBM’s Watson supercomputer triumphed over two top Jeopardy champions in February 2011, the media buzzed with talk of artificial intelligence (AI), just as it had fourteen years earlier wh...
Individual investors: Take a cue from corporate capital … the time is right for robotics
Rob Wilson
19 Feb 2014
Megatrends are easiest to recognize in hindsight, which leads many investors to wonder how they missed out on something so big. How many times have you thought to yourself, “I knew that business o...
Why intelligence requires both body and brain
Colin Allen and Footnote
18 Feb 2014
Western philosophy has traditionally separated mind from matter and brain from body. In recent years, however, cognitive scientists have turned the assumption on its head that we can study the mind b...
Will companies like Google and Amazon usher in a new era for robotics?
Chad Partridge
18 Feb 2014
Amazon announced its plans to launch a new drone delivery service this past December.
Recent eye-popping acquisitions of robotics technology companies by giants like Google and Amazon might sugge...
Sydney Harbor Bridge gets blasted by robot
Frank Tobe
18 Feb 2014
SABRE Autonomous Solutions, a spin-off from the University of Technology Sydney, is using two Schunk lightweight arms and blaster pistols to grit-blast the Sydney Harbor Bridge....
iRobot is on a tear
Frank Tobe
17 Feb 2014
On February 5th iRobot reported their quarterly and annual report. 4Q revenue was up 25% from the previous year and full year 2013 revenue of $487 was up 12%....
Lockheed and AeroVironment to jointly develop UAS
Frank Tobe
16 Feb 2014
AeroVironment (of Raven, Puma and Wasp fame) has a high-altitude long-endurance UAV named Global Observer. It flies at 65,000’ for a week or more at a time, has up to a 600-mile diameter fo...
Robotic skills want-ads up 13% in 2013
Frank Tobe
16 Feb 2014
Comparing 2013 to 2012, demand for robotics skills increased 13% year-over-year. Further evaluation shows that the bulk of hiring is in the healthcare sector.
WANTED Analytics, a research firm anal...
Foxconn and Google cooperating to make robots
Frank Tobe
13 Feb 2014
In a Wall Street Journal story by Lorraine Luk, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou met with Google Robotics Division Andy Rubin in Taipei recently and they discussed new robotic techno...
Big deals: What it means to have the giants investing in robotics
Hallie Siegel
12 Feb 2014
If the world outside the robotics community didn't know about Boston Dynamics, Kiva and Nest, they do now. Recent robotics acquisitions and investments by major-league players like Google, Apple a...
Alan Winfield on “What does it mean to have giants like Google, Apple and Amazon investing in robotics?”
Alan Winfield
12 Feb 2014
Judging by the levels of media coverage and frenzied speculation that has followed each acquisition, the short answer to what does it mean is: endless press exposure. I almost wrote 'priceless exp...
Mark Stephen Meadows on “What does it mean to have giants like Google, Apple and Amazon investing in robotics?”
Mark Stephen Meadows
12 Feb 2014
Google, is the wild card for me. With more acquisitions (DeepMind, Boston Dynamics, Redwood Robotics, Industrial Perception, Meka, Schaft, and others) than Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microso...
AJung Moon on “What does it mean to have giants like Google, Apple and Amazon investing in robotics?”
AJung Moon
12 Feb 2014
We have reasons to feel both excited and uneasy about giant corporations’ investment in robotics.
It’s exciting for the robotics community that the giants (Google, Apple, and Amazon) are active...
Automation, not domination: How robots will take over our world
The first question people tend to ask when they find out you are a roboticist is, “When are robots going to take over the world and become our masters?” The answer to this question is a big “Ne...
2nd International Skolkovo Robotics Conference coming March 1-2 in Moscow
Frank Tobe
10 Feb 2014
By Susan and Mike McFarlane, RobotGuide. Edited by Frank Tobe, The Robot Report.
Created in 2010, Technopark "Skolkovo" provides innovative companies participating in the project to support the ...
The fate of jobs in relation to robotics is confusing
Frank Tobe
10 Feb 2014
Will a robot take your job? Will a higher minimum wage cause job destruction? Or is it all media hype? What's the truth?...
Four interesting robotic investments
Frank Tobe
09 Feb 2014
Microsoft is betting $5.57 million on IT-related projects at two Swiss universities; James Dyson is putting $8.21 million into a London college lab; Ekso Bionics went public with a $20 million IP...
Robots, soldiers and cyborgs: The future of warfare
Armin Krishnan and Footnote
05 Feb 2014
Boston Dynamics' BigDog.
When we imagine the future of warfare, we often envision a battlefield where humanoid robots and other machines fight alongside or in the place of human soldiers. From the dr...
What do Google, Amazon, IBM, Apple, Microsoft and all the airlines and car companies want?
Frank Tobe
03 Feb 2014
They want to communicate more accurately, resolve issues faster and with higher levels of satisfaction than at present. They also want to enable more complex communication. And they want to do it amia...
DoD Unmanned Air, Sea & Ground Budget 2014-2018
Frank Tobe
03 Feb 2014
Within the defense sector, demand for unmanned air, ground and sea systems continues unabated. Drivers include combat operations, reduced military budgets, a changing national security environment and...
Overhead transmission line inspection robots
Frank Tobe
01 Feb 2014
Japanese start-up HiBot, a maker of various types of robots for commercial use such as industrial pipeline cleaning, also developed a high transmission line inspection robot name Expliner. Last week ...
Agricultural robot market anticipated to reach $16.3 billion by 2020
Frank Tobe
01 Feb 2014
In a new $7,800 report by Wintergreen Research, significant growth is anticipated over the remainder of this decade in every aspect of farming, milking, food production and animal control....
Competing sales reports for industrial robotics
Frank Tobe
29 Jan 2014
Research and Markets, an online market research store, is offering a new $3,000 report, Global and Chinese Automotive Industrial Robotics Industry Report 2013-2014, with figure...
Competing Sales Reports for Industrial Robotics
Frank Tobe
28 Jan 2014
Research and Markets, an online market research store, is offering a new $3,000 report, Global and Chinese Automotive Industrial Robotics Industry Report 2013-2014, with figure...
Robot love: Spike Jonze’s new sci-fi film ‘Her’ may be closer to reality than you think
Mark Stephen Meadows
28 Jan 2014
Her is a science fiction movie about love. It's about robot love, about love for robots, and it's also not that fictional.
The story you already know: a sentimental writer (Joaquin Phoenix) fall...
In the news: Intuitive Surgical
Frank Tobe
27 Jan 2014
Mini-tender offer:
TRC Capital Corp, a private firm founded by a Canadian securities lawyer, has made a mini-tender offer to purchase 250,000 shares of Intuitive Surgical stock at a price slightly be...
Bloomberg Businessweek says: “Factory Jobs Are Gone. Get Over It.”
Frank Tobe
27 Jan 2014
Although politicians and economists may have been aggravated by the article, the figures are impressive and worthy of study.
Manufacturing makes up 12% of the U.S. economy with only 10% of the non-...
Beam+ remote presence robots becoming affordable
Frank Tobe
21 Jan 2014
Suitable Technologies just announced their new Beam+ remote presence robot and is offering the first 1,000 units at a price of $995 (thereafter it will be $1,995). First shipments are scheduled for Su...
Doggone it, there are no exciting consumer robots
Andra Keay
21 Jan 2014
If CES shows us anything it’s that consumer robots aren’t exciting, they’re appliances. But it’s exciting that we have a growing field of consumer robots, smart devices and appliances. Accordi...
Seegrid adds vision-guided lifting and stacking to product line
Frank Tobe
19 Jan 2014
Seegrid Corporation, a Pittsburgh-based start-up, has been providing driverless tugs for moving materials from point a to point b. Up until now they have just delivered the skids of material and then ...
Brainlike computing: Something big is happening
Frank Tobe
17 Jan 2014
This infographic on the state of AI by BestComputerScienceDegrees.com doesn't reflect the recent Nest Labs acquisition by Google. Nevertheless one can see that speedy computers and libraries of digita...
A discussion on deploying drones for international development
Matthew Schroyer
16 Jan 2014
Last month, Deutsche Post DHL transported six kilograms of medicine from a pharmacy in Bonn, across the Rhine River, to its headquarters. This wouldn't have made international news, except that DHL a...
If you could enhance yourself with some robotic accessory or implant, what would it be?
RBI Editors
15 Jan 2014
cy·borg - ˈsīˌbôrg/ - noun
a fictional or hypothetical person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by mechanical elements built into the bod...
Mark Stephen Meadows on “If you could enhance yourself with some robotic accessory or implant, what would it be?”
Mark Stephen Meadows
15 Jan 2014
There are two kinds of cyborgs - those that have broken the skin, and those that have not. Iron Man comes to mind as a cyborg of the second category, in that he can remove his enhancement (save for th...
