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Collaborative robotics at the Automate and ProMat trade shows
Frank Tobe
19 Apr 2017
Six to ten years ago, exhibitors at Automate were promoting bin-picking in many, many booths. Bin picking wasn't mentioned this year because it is an available option these days. For the last six ye...
Smart grasping demonstrated at Automate and ProMat trade shows
Frank Tobe
18 Apr 2017
Tactile sensing and force feedback are - and have been - problem areas for robot grasping. Humans could see, select and pick so much faster. Yet to handle the millions of different everyday items in o...
Luminar unstealths their 1.5 micron LIDAR
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
15 Apr 2017
Luminar, a bay area startup, has revealed details on their new LIDAR. Unlike all other commercial offerings, this is a LIDAR using 1.5 micron infrared light. They hope to sell it for $1,000....
CBS News outlines jobs and robotics debate; IFR fills in gaps
Frank Tobe
13 Apr 2017
CBS News, and reporter David Pogue, displayed some new technologies threatening jobs, while the International Federation of Robotics suggested that deploying robots actually increases jobs. Are either...
March 2017 fundings, acquisitions, IPOs and failures
Frank Tobe
10 Apr 2017
March 2017 had 29 robotics-related startups get funding totaling over $222 million - another solid month for 2017 and $658 million year-to-date. Acquisitions also continued to be substantial with ...
No, Detroit is not winning the robocar race
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
05 Apr 2017
A new report from Navigant Research includes the chart shown below, ranking various teams on the race to robocar deployment. It’s causing lots of press headlines about how Ford is the top company an...
Vertical farms profiled on CBS Morning News
Frank Tobe
05 Apr 2017
CBS News profiled a New Jersey vertical farm providing baby kale, arugula, spinach and romaine to nearby Newark and NYC groceries. They boast 130 times more productivity, 95% less water and no pest...
42 companies empowering robots and humans to work side-by-side
Frank Tobe
31 Mar 2017
There is growing demand for more flexibility in factories and shops. Collaborative robotics, a sub-set of service robotics in labs, manufacturing and material handling, is where the action is today...
To really help US workers, invest in robots
Nikolaus Correll
31 Mar 2017
America’s manufacturing heyday is gone, and so are millions of jobs, lost to modernization. Despite what Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin might think, the National Bureau of Economic Research and S...
Artificial people: How will the law adapt to intelligent systems?
Rob van den Hoven van Genderen
31 Mar 2017
Robotics technology is no longer limited to industry. Climate Controls, 3D printers, surveillance robots, drones, household and even sex robots are entering the private market. The more autonomous the...
LIDAR (lasers) and cameras together: Which is more important?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
29 Mar 2017
Recently we’ve seen a series of startups arise hoping to make robocars with just computer vision, along with radar. That includes recently unstealthed AutoX, the off-again, on again efforts of comma...
Asimov’s laws of robotics are not the moral guidelines they appear to be
Tom Sorell
29 Mar 2017
Seventy-five years ago, the celebrated science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story called Runaround. Set on Mercury, it features a sophisticated robot nicknamed Speedy that has been or...
RoboThespian stars in UK play Spillikin, a love story
Frank Tobe
21 Mar 2017
In a poignant play traveling throughout the UK, a robot is co-star and companion to the wife of the (now deceased) robot builder, with the wife developing early Alzheimer's. The play explores very hu...
Bosch and Nvidia partner to develop AI for self-driving cars
Frank Tobe
17 Mar 2017
Amongst all the activity in autonomously driven vehicle joint ventures, new R&D facilities, strategic acquisitions (such as Mobileye being acquired by Intel) and booming startup fundings, two bi...
Intel to acquire Mobileye for $15.3 billion
Frank Tobe
14 Mar 2017
Intel announced plans to acquire Israel-based Mobileye, a developer of vision technology used in autonomous driving applications, for $15.3 billion. Mobileye share prices jumped from $47 to $61 (the t...
Robotic science may (or may not) help us keep up with the death of bees
Frank Tobe
10 Mar 2017
Beginning in 2006 beekeepers became aware that their honeybee populations were dying off at increasingly rapid rates. Scientists are also concerned about the dwindling populations of monarch butterfli...
Should an artificial intelligence be allowed to get a patent?
Ronald Yu
09 Mar 2017
Whether an A.I. ought to be granted patent rights is a timely question given the increasing proliferation of A.I. in the workplace. Examples: Daimler-Benz has tested self-driving trucks on public road...
Artificial intelligence: Utopia or dystopia?
Margaret Boden
02 Mar 2017
Artificial intelligence (AI) already plays a major role in human economies and societies, and it will play an even bigger role in the coming years. To ponder the future of AI is thus to acknowledge th...
February 2017 fundings, acquisitions and IPOs
Frank Tobe
02 Mar 2017
February fundings for 16 robotics-related startups totaled over $313 million - another solid month for the new year. Acquisitions also continued to be substantial with Ford's acquisition of Argo and M...
Recap: 2016 funding and acquisition updates
Frank Tobe
28 Feb 2017
Although the original articles (2016 was best year ever for funding robotics startup companies) and (Over $19 billion paid to acquire 50 robotic companies) have been updated to reflect the omissions o...
At what point should an intelligent machine be considered a person?
Kyle Bowyer
22 Feb 2017
Science fiction likes to depict robots as autonomous machines, capable of making their own decisions and often expressing their own personalities. Yet we also tend to think of robots as property, and ...
Legal artificial intelligence: Can it stand up in a court of law?
Ronald Yu
21 Feb 2017
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly mentions what has become known as the “10,000-hour rule”, which states that to become world-class in any field you must devote 10,000 hours of “...
Should California electrify Caltrain or invest in robocars?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
20 Feb 2017
[Editor's note: According to a recent article on SFGate, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has put the brakes on $647 million for Caltrain to go electric. The delay may kill the project entirely.]...
Ford Motor to invest $1 billion in Pittsburgh startup Argo AI
Frank Tobe
15 Feb 2017
Argo AI, a Pittsburgh startup, has sold a majority share of their company to Ford Motor Co. which has agreed to invest $1 billion over a five-year schedule but will immediately become the majority sh...
Robotic cleaning market growing exponentially
Frank Tobe
13 Feb 2017
The International Federation of Robotics forecast that the global market for vacuum cleaning robots, lawn-mowing robots and other household cleaning robots will grow at a compound annual growth rate...
Uber talks of deal with Daimler which shows Uber’s great advantage
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
10 Feb 2017
I generally pay very little attention when companies issue a press release about an “alliance.” It’s usually not a lot more than a press release, unless there are details on what will actually b...
California publishes robocar intervention reports: Google/Waymo vastly outpaces competition
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
08 Feb 2017
California published its summary of all the reports submitted by vendors testing robocars in the state. You can read the individual reports. They are interesting, but several other outlines have creat...
Lady Gaga, 300 Intel drones, and the Super Bowl
Frank Tobe
07 Feb 2017
Three hundred drones flashed their colored lights and created a flying American flag as Lady Gaga sang a blend of "God Bless America” and "This Land Is Your Land" to 160 million viewers of the Super...
The infrastructure of life part 2: Transparency
Alan Winfield
03 Feb 2017
Part 2: Autonomous Systems and Transparency
In my previous post I argued that a wide range of AI and Autonomous Systems (from now on I will just use the term AS as shorthand for both) should be reg...
January fundings, acquisitions, IPOs and failures
Frank Tobe
03 Feb 2017
January fundings for robotics-related startups totaled over $123 million - a reasonable start for the new year. For acquisitions, three of the six companies acquired reported that $390.5 million trad...
How will farmers and robots work together?
John Payne
03 Feb 2017
Let's assume, for a moment, that the vision I've laid out in this blog is ridiculously successful, and, over the next few decades, robotic devices take over all aspects of tending land and crops and h...
Views and forecasts about robotics for the ag industry
Frank Tobe
31 Jan 2017
At RoboUniverse in San Diego, agricultural robots and the labor shortage were quickly identified as the biggest issues facing the industry today. Water scarcity and field health were other key issues ...
Flying cars are coming, what will they mean?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
27 Jan 2017
Earlier I posted my gallery of CES gadgets and included a photo of the eHang 184 from China, a “personal drone” able, in theory, to carry a person up to 100kg.
Whether the eHang is real or not...
The infrastructure of life part 1: Safety
Alan Winfield
26 Jan 2017
Part 1: Autonomous Systems and Safety
We all rely on machines. All aspects of modern life, from transport to energy, work to welfare, play to politics depend on a complex infrastructure of physical...
Factory move to U.S. creates jobs with help from robot workforce
Frank Tobe
25 Jan 2017
By investing $6 million in robots, Bicycle Corporation of America (BCA) was able to take back 10% of their manufacturing from China and place it into a new factory in Manning, South Carolina employin...
How regenerative agriculture and robotics can benefit each other
John Payne
25 Jan 2017
I've come around to the view that the best and most inclusive term for high-concept farming which is both sustainably productive and ecologically responsible is Regenerative Agriculture. It implies al...
