Quite a lot has been going on:
Meet the robots that may be coming to an airport near you
"Good morning. Welcome to British Airways. Where can I take you?" The crisp female voice might belong to any woman working for BA, but it's a robot cruising around London's Heathrow Airport. The carrier is trying out a pair of autonomous robots that can guide passengers around Terminal 5. It's one of the latest examples of increasing automation at airports including advanced intelligent machines that interact with passengers.
Terminal 5 is Heathrow's busiest, with some 32.8 million passengers on 210,723 flights in 2018. The following year, BA installed 80 automated bag-drop machines in the facility; it also has experimented with self-driving luggage vehicles. The carrier says automation in the terminal has reduced the number of lineups and made journeys faster and smoother.
Meet MarsCat, a robot cat with lots of love to give and room to grow – TechCrunch
This new product is designed for the home, however, not the factory or the lab. MarsCat is the startup’s first consumer product, but it obviously benefits immensely from the company’s expertise and experience in their industrial robotics business. With its highly articulated legs, tail and head, it can sit up, walk, play and watch your movements, all working autonomously without any additional input required.
While MarsCat provides that kind of functionality out of the box, it’s also customizable and programmable by the user. Inside, it’s powered by a Raspberry Pi, and it ships with MarsCat SDK, which is an open software development library that allows you to fully control and program all of the robot’s functions. This makes it an interesting gadget for STEM education and research, too.
Robots out of work as automated businesses close in Bay Area
A Silicon Valley company that used robots to make its pizzas closed this week, and three coffee shops in downtown San Francisco that used robots as baristas also shuttered.
The Mountain View startup, which first began delivering pizzas in 2016, said it intends to focus on its food packaging and delivery systems. Garden said former employees will be able to apply for the 100 new positions Zume expects to have in its packaging business.
In San Francisco, Cafe X closed three of its coffee shops in the financial district. The startup's founder, Henry Hu, said the downtown cafes helped develop the newest machine being used at shops at San Francisco International Airport and Mineta San Jose International Airport, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Other things to check out:
Do We Really Need Robots in Our Kitchens for Convenience?
If there is any universal idea in this world, it’s that we’re all looking to get back a little time. Countless startups are built around this notion and our meal time is one area that is especially ready for, pardon the phrase, “disruption” in the name of convenience.
But what shape should that convenience take? It’s a question that came to mind when looking at the coverage of this year’s CES. In particular, some of the announcements that came out around kitchen robots.
Ford's robots could eventually deliver packages to your front door
Imagine you're waiting for a package to be delivered. As you track its every movement on your smartphone, you see a car pull into your driveway. But there's no one behind the wheel.
From the back, a light blue robot unfolds itself; carries your package to your front door; carefully walks back to the delivery van, avoiding the bikes your kids left on the lawn; neatly packs itself away, and heads off to its next job.
That's the future Ford ( F ) envisions for its two newly purchased Digit robots . The first commercially available bipedal robot, Digit, designed and built by Agility Robotics, is a 100-pound titanium and plastic-clad peek into a not-too-distant future where self-driving cars are the norm.
The 'Robot Tax' Debate Heats Up - WSJ
Waymo’s Anca Dragan and Ike Robotics CTO Jur van den Berg are coming to TC Sessions:
The road to “solving” self-driving cars is riddled with challenges, from perception and decision making to figuring out the interaction between humans and robots.
Today we're announcing that joining us at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI on March 3 at UC Berkeley are two experts who play important roles in the development and deployment of autonomous vehicle technology: Anca Dragan and Jur van den Berg .
* * *
TC Sessions: Robotics+AI returns to Berkeley on March 3. Make sure to grab your early-bird tickets today for $275 before prices go up by $100. Students, grab your tickets for just $50 here .
No comments:
Post a Comment