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Headlights that see through rain; A robotic seamstress
Frank Tobe
20 Jul 2012
Normally I don't write about scientific breakthroughs that may or may not turn into commercial products. But these two are sure winners and I wanted to share them with you....
Headlights that see through rain; A robotic seamstress
Frank Tobe
20 Jul 2012
By Frank Tobe, Editor/Publisher, The Robot ReportNormally I don't write about scientific breakthroughs that may or may not turn into commercial products. But these two are sure winners and I wanted to...
Join the wild ride
Frank Tobe
13 Jul 2012
… Job Opening at ReThink Robotics “for a developer relations engineer—a person to lead development of a ROS-based SDK for a new low cost manipulator that will be readily available for re...
Fascinating projections: $100 billion robotics industry by 2020
Frank Tobe
13 Jul 2012
… Markets and Markets: Service robotics revenue forecast for 2017: $46 billion at 17.4% annual growth.
… Intl. Federation of Robotics: service robotics forecast much lower figures but similar grow...
Robots and ethical choices
Frank Tobe
28 Jun 2012
... The Economist in recent weeks has printed a series of articles about robots but this video about robo-ethics is particularly clear and worth a few minutes of your time.
... Or read the book by Geo...
Robot know thyself
Alan Winfield
27 Jun 2012
How can we measure self-awareness in artificial systems?...
6,000 job ads for robotics in May
Frank Tobe
27 Jun 2012
... During May 2012, 6,000 job ads for robotics were posted - a 29% year-over-year growth and twice the volume of similar ads in May 2010, reported Wanted Analytics, a Canadian research firm providing...
Liquid Robotics joint ventures with oil & gas technology provider Schlumberger
Frank Tobe
23 Jun 2012
… New company, Liquid Robotics Oil & Gas, will be headquartered in Houston,TX and will initially provide Wave Glider platforms for surveillance; seep/spill detection; and communications gateway ...
Heartland Robotics gets $30 million, a new name and provides an outline of their new product
Frank Tobe
19 Jun 2012
... Rethink Robotics (formerly Heartland Robotics) announced that it has secured $30 million in Series C funding to launch the company’s new robot product, begin development of new product lines...
Apple to invest $7 billion in robots
Frank Tobe
18 Jun 2012
... According to a story in Seeking Alphaª, Apple plans to purchase billions of dollars of industrial robots from Fanuc for placement within Foxconn’s factories in China. Neither Apple nor Foxc...
New venture fund specifically for service robotic startups
Frank Tobe
16 Jun 2012
... “We are at the start of a transformative period for robotics that requires a new breed of risk-taker to drive mass-market adoption,” says Dmitry Grishin, founder of Grishin Robotics.
....
Robot lawnmowers still a work in progress
Frank Tobe
14 Jun 2012
... Too expensive for most home use, not professional enough for industrial use, robotic lawnmowers have yet to become as commonplace as Roombas. But a new crop of consumer manufacturers is quietly ma...
Some robotic stocks are defying the down markets
Frank Tobe
14 Jun 2012
... Stocks of industrial robot makers Adept, Denso, Yushin and Fanuc are doing well year-to-date as are service robot makers Swisslog, Technip, Sohgo Alsok, Thermo Fisher, Perkin Elmer and Accuray.
.....
First Kiva Systems and now Intelligrated! Who’s next?
Frank Tobe
09 Jun 2012
... What is it about automated robotic warehousing? Amazon just acquired Kiva Systems for $775 million and now Permira, a European private equity firm, announced that it was acquiring Intelligrated fo...
Four approaches by industrial robot makers to transition to service robotics
Frank Tobe
07 Jun 2012
... KUKA launched a new lightweight and sensitive arm that can be affixed to a tabletop. YASKAWA MOTOMAN has an ambitious and well-thought-out plan to provide human assist robots. ADEPT is acquiring m...
Flexible, intelligent robotics debuted in materials handling marketplace
Frank Tobe
07 Jun 2012
... Symbotic, formerly CasePick Systems, is providing mobile robots that grab closed boxes of goods and brings them to a pallet-loading robot. Different from Kiva Systems, recently acquired by Amazon,...
Companies transitioning from industrial to service robots
Frank Tobe
07 Jun 2012
Robot manufacturers are beginning to shift their
attention from industrial to service robots.
The robotics industry is on the cusp of a major transformation. Today’s factory robots are solit...
Companies transitioning from industrial to service robots
Frank Tobe
07 Jun 2012
A version of this post originally appeared on Singularity Hub, June 6, 2012.By Frank Tobe, Editor and PublisherThe Robot ReportRobot manufacturers are beginning to shift theirattention from industrial...
Hansen Medical receives FDA clearance for it’s Magellan robotic system
Frank Tobe
06 Jun 2012
... Today, most catheter and catheter-based technologies for vascular disease use blood vessels as highways to guide their movement to specific parts of the body, manually-controlled, with handheld in...
What’s happening to the big industrial robot stocks?
Frank Tobe
02 Jun 2012
... Compared to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is back to where it started the year, the big four robot manufacturers are down 20% year to date. Yet 2011 robot sales were great (see story bel...
Robot and Frank review
Andra Keay
01 Jun 2012
Finally, a robot film worth seeing for the reality and not the fantasy. Robot and Frank, one of the hits at the Sundance Film Festival will be the headline act at the Robot Film Festival 2012 July 1...
Teledyne Technologies acquires BlueView
Frank Tobe
01 Jun 2012
... BlueView Technologies, a provider of underwater vision systems for many underwater robotics providers, announced that it would be acquired by Teledyne effective in July.
... BlueView delivers inst...
2012 IERA Invention and Entrepreneurship awarded to RoboCoaster and Universal Robots
Frank Tobe
31 May 2012
... “The important advancement in safe robots for the entertainment industry by RoboCoaster and the development of a new generation of simple robots for SME’s by Universal Robots not only repr...
Global robot sales up 37% for 2011
Frank Tobe
30 May 2012
... China, the US and Germany all reached new peak levels between 39% and 51%.
... Auto industry, metals and machinery industries were the main drivers.
... “In 2011, about 165,000 industrial ro...
UAV’s finding uses outside of military, space and defense
Frank Tobe
26 May 2012
... AeroVironment doing test for FCC of an aerial communications relay station which could be used in the event of a disaster. “Small UAVs can provide instant communications capabilities to pres...
Wackiness and STEM-stimulation at MakerFaire
Frank Tobe
21 May 2012
... MakerFaire 2012 was a glorious success. A fire-breathing dragon; the audience pedal-powering the electronics for a concert; a dozen R2-D2s; lectures on everything from laser cutting to DARPA’...
Navy buys eight $33 million Fire Scout unmanned copters
Frank Tobe
15 May 2012
... Navy awards Northrop Grumman with $262 million contract for 8 Fire Scouts with plans to add an additional 20 at a later date.
... The Fire Scout has the ability to autonomously take off and land o...
Finally a launch date for Heartland Robotics!
Frank Tobe
14 May 2012
... The long awaited launch of Heartland Robotics’ new co-robot product line finally has a launch date - next January 21-24 at the Automate 2013 show in Chicago.
... Heartland has reserved a big...
Mako Surgical’s stock takes a big hit
Frank Tobe
14 May 2012
... Stock drops from $41 to $21. Many reasons given: slow sales of RIO systems; utilization rates of existing systems are down; class action suits; and investor restlessness.
... The problem of utili...
Why robot startups now? Part 2
Andra Keay
11 May 2012
2. Broader Financial Climate
A positive indicator for robotics startups is the improving financial climate. There are signs that the US housing market is stabilizing. Fannie Mae, the government bac...
Why robot startups now? Part 1
Andra Keay
10 May 2012
Now is the right time for robot startups. Why? The reasons range from changes within robotics to changes in the broader financial and technological environment. There is a critical mass which we belie...
Largest robotics program in DARPA’s history
Frank Tobe
09 May 2012
... DARPA has created it’s largest robotics program to date: the DARPA Robotics $2 Million Challenge (DRC), to help the world’s resiliency to disasters through the use of robotics.
... Som...
Silicon Valley: In search of a robotics cluster
Frank Tobe
07 May 2012
UPDATE 5/7/12: Thorough review of event and situation by Chris O’Brien of the Silicon Valley MercuryNews. He captured the flavor as well as the details. (Saved me from having to write the story!...
New spin-off from SRI: Grabit gaining traction
Frank Tobe
06 May 2012
... Grabit’s electroadhesion gripping products provide a technique for holding or grasping objects without the need of bulky, energy-intensive clamping or vacuum suction devices.
... Grabit’s “g...
Meka Robotics + Willow Garage + SRI = Redwood Robotics
Frank Tobe
04 May 2012
... Meka Robotics, Willow Garage and SRI announced a new startup competitor to Heartland Robotics: Redwood Robotics.
...The new website says that Redwood will be offering a new generation of robot ar...
