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Designing our home service robot from the ground up

Bernt Øivind Børnich and Phuong Nguyen 15 Aug 2016

Our robot, Eve, is built from the ground up using force-control, enabling human-like dexterity and efficiency. We'd like to discuss why we decided to build Eve this way, hopefully offering another app...

Robot companions are coming into our homes — how human should they be?

Adeline Chanseau 10 Aug 2016

What would your ideal robot be like? One that can change nappies and tell bedtime stories to your child? Perhaps you’d prefer a butler that can polish silver and mix the perfect cocktail? Or maybe y...

Global and iRobot floor cleaning market

Frank Tobe 25 Apr 2016

iRobot recently divested its defense division so that it could focus on consumer and mobility products. Red Mountain Capital, a hedge fund that owns ~6% of iRobot stock wants to place two pe...

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podcast

Mecha Monsters, with Silas Adekunle

Audrow Nash 17 Apr 2016

Transcript below. In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Silas Adekunle, Co-founder and CEO of Reach Robotics. They speak about Reach Robotics’ first product, Mecha Monsters: legged, gaming robo...

Robots that may help you in your silver age

SPARC 07 Apr 2016

By 2020, a quarter of Europeans will be over 60. In their silver age, many would like to stay in their homes and will require care from family or social workers....

Sweep: a low cost LiDAR sensor for smart consumer products

Tyson Messori 04 Apr 2016

UPDATE: Only 7 days left to back Sweep! They are now almost 80% funded....

Teach your dog to code with robots!

Silicon Valley Robotics 01 Apr 2016

Spoiler alert. It’s April 1. But this is actually happening, just not quite the way SF educational robot startup Wonder Workshop describe it in this wonderful video about their new release – Wonde...

iRobot’s $199 floor mopper designed for Chinese markets

Frank Tobe 31 Mar 2016

iRobot has been streamlining its operations to focus on consumer products and enhancing shareholder value. Recent moves to divest their defense division, launch a low-cost Braava Jet floor cleaner...

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 ...

Robotics, AI and automation in “Forbes 30 under 30”

Hallie Siegel 26 Jan 2016

[clear] Forbes has once again expanded their "30 under 30" list this year to celebrate the achievements of the up and coming; the main list now covers 20 different sectors, and an inaugural E...

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...

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...

Watch this service robot predict your organizing preferences

Nichola Abdo 18 Jan 2016

How many of us have envisioned intelligent robots operating and assisting us in our homes with everyday tasks? Different users typically have varying preferences and expectations when it comes to tas...

Foxconn shopping for robot manufacturer to keep pace with brisk Pepper sales

Frank Tobe 05 Jan 2016

In an article about the pace of sales for the SoftBank Pepper robot, the China Post reported that Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision (AKA Foxconn) has sent a team of 30 to survey the US market for futu...

Blue River Technology, Jibo and others get holiday funding

Frank Tobe 18 Dec 2015

Jibo got $16 million from Asian VCs to enable Jibo to speak and sell in Japan and China, while Blue River Technology got $17 million from a group of agricultural VCs to expand product development to n...

2016 will be a pivotal year for social robots

Frank Tobe 14 Dec 2015

1,000 Pepper robots are selling each month from a big-dollar venture between SoftBank, Alibaba and Foxconn; Jibo just raised another $16 million as it prepares to deliver 7,500+ units in March and A...

Tabletop telepresence finding its niche

Michael Savoie 08 Dec 2015

Tabletop telepresence devices began to pop up on the market about two years ago. Though its a small slice of the telepresence market, it's differentiated enough from other categories to be mention...

Personal telepresence relatively affordable, but expect to pay extra for the tablet

Michael Savoie 03 Dec 2015

Personal telepresence robots have exploded onto the market thanks to the help of tablets, smartphones, and crowdfunding sites. Geared toward the economics of personal use, these robots typically cos...

More than 180,000 robotic vacuum cleaners sold on a single day

Frank Tobe 23 Nov 2015

On Singles Day 2015, a holiday for the Chinese singles and youth market, Ecovacs Robotics sold $47 million worth of robotic products. Ecovacs only has three robotic products: a line of vacuum cleaners...

Nailbot: A ‘nail art’ robot that inspires creativity

Casey Schulz and Pree Walia 17 Nov 2015

Launched last week on Indiegogo, the Nailbot prints instant custom art onto your fingernails from your phone. Behind the concept is a new kind of company -- a movement to inspire confidence in girls a...

1,000 workers produce latest batch of 1,000 Pepper robots

Frank Tobe 12 Nov 2015

The latest batch of 1,000 Japanese-speaking Pepper robots sold out in one minute after they were made available online by Japanese telecom company SoftBank. This brings the total Pepper robots sold ...

Feeding the robot chef

Alex Owen-Hill and Robotiq Inc. 09 Nov 2015

Could robot chefs really have arrived? Moley's approach, the robotic kitchen, is basically a flexible workcell, and in manufacturing that’s nothing new. But providing the essential ingredients - fee...

Delivery robots from Starship Technologies

Brad Templeton, Robocars.com 04 Nov 2015

I’m pleased to announce today [Monday] the unveiling of a new self-driving vehicle company with which I am involved, not building self-driving cars, but instead small delivery robots which are going...

Four influential technologies with roots in robotics

Alex Owen-Hill and Robotiq Inc. 29 Oct 2015

Robotics research has such strong links with several other research fields that, without it, the modern world might not have some of its most promising consumer technologies....

Dyson robotic vacuums go on sale in Japan

Frank Tobe 24 Oct 2015

After a six-month delay to hone the robot for Japanese homes, and a year after the original launch announcement, the Dyson 360 Eye robotic vacuum cleaner has finally gone on sale in stores all over Ja...

Robots in Depth: Grishin Robotics’ Valery Komissarova on getting funding

Per Sjöborg and Robots in Depth 23 Oct 2015

Robots in Depth is a new video series featuring interviews with researchers, entrepreneurs, VC investors, and policy makers in robotics, hosted by Per Sjöborg. In this interview, Valery Komissarova ...

Dyson releases 360 Eye in Japan for ~$1200, files legal proceedings against Bosch for VW-like cheating

Hallie Siegel 22 Oct 2015

News Brief: Dyson released its 360-Eye in Japan today -- for about $1200 USD -- and has also filed legal proceedings against Bosch, alleging that their longstanding rival is cheating EU energy eff...

The state of telepresence

Michael Savoie 09 Oct 2015

Telepresence robots have been around since the early 2000s, with a research project called PEBBLES out of Ryerson University in Toronto. When I first started covering this area a little over three yea...

IFR predicts double digit growth for service robots through 2018

Frank Tobe 05 Oct 2015

The service robotics industry is relatively new, diverse and picking up steam daily. Service robotics covers every activity except those described as industrial. These are robots that perform useful t...

Shopping via telepresence makes for good PR; how long before it’s mainstream?

Michael Savoie 29 Sep 2015

Robots are great for doing dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs, and few jobs are more dangerous and downright dull (at times) than waiting in line to buy the latest tech gadget. Last week in Palo Alto,...

Dobot’s robot arm: Industrial precision at low cost

Dobot 23 Sep 2015

Unsatisfied by the low cost, low precision and poor functionality desktop robotic arms on the market, a group of six hardcore robot makers decided to quit their high-paying industry jobs, and build th...

Virtual assistants are the testbeds for tomorrow’s personal robots

Mark Stephen Meadows 22 Sep 2015

Virtual assistants are setting the bar for the kind of user experience people will expect from the social robots of tomorrow....

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