According to this Financial Times report, AI and robotics providers have some lofty expectations regarding how popular their technology will be in manufacturing environments.
One company claims that 14 percent of manufacturing and automotive jobs will be automated in the next four years, and Goldman Sachs projects that the humanoid robot market could reach $38 billion by 2035 — at least if robots like Tesla’s Optimus can become as capable as their makers are claiming they will be.
This is Figure’s humanoid robot, which can now use OpenAI’s large vision language model (VLM) to provide reasoning and language understanding. The video shows how the bot can identify and interact with the objects on the counter in front of it when given a prompt, like “Can I have something to eat?”
The New York Times writes about this startup developing AI software to help sorting robots interact with the physical world. With videos or text input (users can talk with them like a chatbot), the robot can “learn” how to function in factories without long strings of instructions.
Founded by former OpenAI researchers, Covariant’s work is the latest in a wave of robots integrating with AI foundation models.
The robots are expected to hit the sidewalks of Tokyo starting at the end of March, marking Uber’s first international expansion of its autonomous delivery service. The six-wheeled delivery robots are manufactured by Cartken, an Oakland-based AI company, and operations will be supervised by Mitsubishi Electric. Delivery robots are growing more popular, but they still require a team of human workers to make the system work.
By which I mean it’s literally learning to pick up objects and slide them onto shelves, like the 30-pound car struts seen in the video below.
Completing these complex maneuvers are essential if Atlas, and the bipedal robots being trialed by Tesla, BMW, and Amazon have any hope of besting good, old-fashioned human power.
The Ingenuity helicopter mission achieved powered flight on another world, brought Zigbee and Linux to Mars, and survived close calls, lasting 33 times longer than originally planned.
But on Thursday, NASA officials said that after a loss of communication and rough landing last week its rotor blades are too damaged to fly again. The Perseverance rover that brought it to Mars is too far away to get a picture, but this picture shows the shadow of a broken blade on the Mars terrain.
The Tesla CEO and X CTO / owner writes that “I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control,” and proposed building products (like Grok?) outside of Tesla instead.
Musk’s stake in the company reportedly dropped to 13.4 percent in 2022 as he sold shares and acquired X, then known as Twitter. Now there’s this statement, a recent WSJ report citing concerns about drug use, and... Tesla’s Q4 earnings report coming up on January 24th.
Its new AI Agent may have Rosey the Robot aspirations — but do you need a robot with “personality” to control smart home devices and clean up after your cat?
I saw a demo of the Agent at CES, and as charming as it is — with its big eyes and headphone ears (it’s a handle; one of the crew picked it up by it when it got stuck) — it doesn’t seem to do much that a stationary AI voice assistant couldn’t.
Those “legs” are just for dancing, and without arms, it's not going to be taking out the trash or emptying the dishwasher. But then again, dancing might just be enough!
The company revealed the bot ahead of its appearance at CES 2024, which it’s touting as an “all-around home manager and companion.”
In addition to serving as a remote monitoring system, LG says the bipedal bot can also interact with humans using voice and image recognition. Apparently, one of its abilities includes greeting users when they arrive home and playing music based on their detected mood.
The latest Tesla Bot is a little bit lighter, walks faster, and balances better with improvements throughout, including in the function of its neck, feet, and hands. But is it the “friend” Elon Musk says will cost “much less than $20,000” and allow for “a future where there is no poverty?” Probably not.
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Where are all the robot trucks?
The promised wave of autonomous big rigs never materialized. But 2024 could prove to be a pivotal year for the technology.
A couple weeks ago, I flew out to Hollywood to check out Serve Robotics, a company that’s using a fleet of shopping cart-sized robots to make Uber Eats deliveries. We spoke to the people who are working behind-the-scenes to make robot delivery happen, including supervisors, field agents, and even the CEO. We even interviewed the guy behind the viral TikTok account where he just yells at the robots.
The real friends were the robots we met along the way.
EU regulators have set a February 14th deadline to decide on the $1.7 billion deal first announced over a year ago. The previous deadline was December 13th. Amazon wants to acquire the robotic vacuum company that can map the inside of your home to help make ambient intelligence a reality. So far, the EU doesn’t seem to love the idea.
At about noon local time, Oregon State University warned the campus of a bomb threat targeting Starship autonomous food delivery robots. About an hour later, officials gave the all-clear.
Starship Technologies temporarily suspended service before saying the threat came from a student who claimed it was a joke and a prank, while the Associated Press reports the person who made the threat has been arrested.
Here’s how Amazon described its test of Agility Robotics’ bi-pedal Digit robot in a press release yesterday:
Digit can move, grasp, and handle items in spaces and corners of warehouses in novel ways. Its size and shape are well suited for buildings that are designed for humans, and we believe that there is a big opportunity to scale a mobile manipulator solution, such as Digit, which can work collaboratively with employees.
Scale usage, but somehow not replace any human workers at newly cost-conscious and union-hating Amazon? Sure.
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Disney recently showed off bipedal droids that look exactly like something you’d see in a Star Wars movie, and now Disney’s Imagineers are testing the droids at Disneyland, as reported by Disneyland News Today. I love them!!
Anybody have some money they can lend me for this? I’ll pay you back after I save the galaxy over the course of 49 episodes.
A new video shows off the company’s Optimus robot running through some calibration cycles for its limbs before successfully putting matching colored blocks with their corresponding trays. It’s a menial task that the Tesla Bot has done before, but this time a human tries to confuse it. The bot then relieves stress with some yoga poses. You know, bot stuff.
The robovacs are coming, and they’re edgier than ever
The IFA 2023 trade show floor was overrun by robot vacuums on a quest to clean your floors. From one that does the splits with its mops to the return of the square robot, these robots are coming for those corners.
The Dreame Roboticmower A1, a new robot lawnmower, can tackle yards as large as half an acre, which is good news for us Americans with big yards.
These electric autonomous grass-cutting devices have struggled to take off in the US due to range issues, complexity, and high costs.
While Dreame’s bot may cost as much as $2,000 (pricing isn't finalized) it uses lidar mapping so there’s no need for clunky beacons or fiddly guide wire.
Developer Charlie Diaz has created a miniature prototype complete with functional robotic arms. His guide uses a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, an 8BitDo bluetooth remote, and a 3D printer. Diaz originally tried a full-sized costume, but found that its legs “contacted the ground and got stuck, preventing the walking motion”.
If you have built one of these and now have it walking around your house, please send me a video immediately.
Today I learned there’s a piano-playing animatronic puppet that’s been roaming around San Francisco serenading the locals with Vanessa Carlton’s hit single A Thousand Miles.
Aerospace engineer Ben Howard used iPhone lipsync recordings and a former autonomous food delivery robot to create the project. Carlton herself says that he nailed recreating the fishtail braids she was rocking back in 2002.