Labor has, of course, been an issue in Japan for some time, courtesy of a shrinking population, low birthrate and a confluence of other issues. The ongoing global pandemic, meanwhile, hasn't done much to move the needle in the right direction. This week, SoftBank detailed plans to bring Bear's Servi robot to the country in an effort to address restaurant labor issues.
Priced at $950 a month , as part of a three-year lease plan, the robot is set to arrive in Japan in January. The robot is a mobile serving station designed to replace or augment wait staff in a restaurant. Each unit is capable of holding two serving trays and a bin for bussing dishes after serving.
Quite a lot has been going on:
Exotec raises $90 million for its warehouse robots – TechCrunch
French startup Exotec has raised a $90 million Series C round led by 83North, with existing investors Iris Capital and Breega also participating. Other existing investors include 360 Capital. The company has been working on semi-automated warehouses for e-commerce clients.
The system is based on tiny robots called Skypods. They roam the floor and go up and down racks to pick up standardized bins of products.
The company also provides logistics software to coordinate all those robots through the warehouse. As you scale, you can add more robots and more racks without any downtime.
VEX Robotics Introduces VEX GO to Inspire Elementary Students Through Robots, STEM, and Coding
GREENVILLE, Texas , Sept. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - As the industry leaders in educational robotics, VEX Robotics introduces VEX GO to teach the fundamentals of STEM, robotics, and coding in elementary schools. VEX GO encourages young minds to collaborate, gain technical literacy, and engage in hands-on learning. With the release of VEX GO, VEX Robotics now offers educational robotics solutions for students from Elementary through College.
VEX GO is designed for students in grades 3-5. GO introduces these young students to all aspects of STEM, building their skills and proficiency before their young minds form opinions about their future potential.
Rise Of The Machines: The Countries With The Highest Density Of Robot Workers [Infographic]
In many countries, that figure is far higher, particularly in economies renowned for their strong automotive and manufacturing industries. In South Korea, for example, there were 855 industrial robots per 10,000 employees in 2019, one of the highest density rates on the planet thanks to the presence of global powerhouses such as Samsung, Hyundai and Kia.
In Germany, the realm of Volkswagen, Daimler , BMW, Bosch and Siemens, there are 346 industrial robots per 10,000 employees, the highest density level in Europe. In the United States the pace of automation slackened last year with the number of new installations down 17% on 2018. Nevertheless, the 33,300 shipped units still represents robust sales and the second highest result of all time. The data shows that the U.S. had 228 industrial robots per 10,000 of its workers in 2019.
While you're here, how about this:
Army Robots Hunt Tanks In Project Convergence « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news,
An experimental Army robot, nicknamed Origin, at the Project Convergence exercise at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz. The large green tube on top is a CROWS-J Javelin missile launcher.
WASHINGTON: A pair of unprepossessing robots, looking more like militarized golf carts than Terminators, trundled across the Yuma Desert, part of the Army's Project Convergence exercise on future warfare.
Like human troops, the machines took turns covering each other as they advanced. One robot would find a safe spot, stop, and launch the tethered mini-drone it carried to look over the next ridgeline while the other bot moved forward; then they’d switch off.
Researchers create fly-catching robots
An international team of Johannes Kepler University researchers is developing robots made from soft materials. A new article in the journal Communications Materials demonstrates how these kinds of soft machines react using weak magnetic fields to move very quickly—even grabbing a quick-moving fly that has landed on it.
When we imagine a moving machine, such as a robot, we picture something largely made out of hard materials, says Martin Kaltenbrunner.
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In June, scientists presented a new approach for electromagnetic motors. Instead of copper wire and iron, elastic materials and liquid metal now form the basic ingredients for the so-called actuator. Scientists also recently introduced a new type of bio-gel in a journal article in Nature Materials which is elastic, flexible, and stable enough to be combined with electronic components in order to create a kind of "soft robot ."
Robotic Co-Workers: The Next Generation of Robots at Workspaces
Despite this concern, reports show that the collaboration between humans and machines can complement each other and improve productivity. According to Accenture research, the collaboration could bolster revenue by 38 percent by 2022. In recent years, there have been major robotics developments that are supporting human activity in perilous, menial, and dull tasks and even exploring unreachable environments, from deep oceans to deep space.
Advances in both sensing and actuation allow robots to perform operations in the proximity of humans. Within an organization, the implementation of a sensor-based robotic co-worker that brings robots closer to humans in industrial settings and enable close cooperation is a critical goal in robotics.
The Rise Of Restaurant Robots Amidst Pandemic Measures
In a restaurant landscape where lean profit margins are getting even slimmer due to the necessary COVID-19 safety measures of distancing, staying afloat is an increasingly difficult challenge. Small wonder, then, that some operators are using whatever means they can to stand out from their competition. Robot waiters, although not a new phenomenon, are making headlines around the world again, but this time with a socially distanced twist.
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WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 08: Residents watch a Starship Technologies delivery robot pass by April 8, ... [+] 2020 in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of Washington, DC. The local Broad Branch Market is teaming up with Starship to provide delivery service of grocery and prepared food by autonomous robots in the outbreak of COVID-19, also known as coronavirus. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Happening on Twitter
SoftBank's robotics arm says it will bring a food service robot developed by California-based Bear Robotics to Japa… https://t.co/wT2y24vD7H Reuters (from Around the world) Mon Sep 28 23:30:00 +0000 2020
SoftBank will bring Bear's serving robots to Japan, amid restaurant labor shortages https://t.co/IVokXHX6VS by @bheater TechCrunch (from San Francisco, CA) Mon Sep 28 14:35:23 +0000 2020
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