Robotics
Bleeding edge robotics companies focused on a wide range of automation categories, including logotics, agtech, delivery, healthcare, home robotics and food service, along with the latest university and laboratory research into soft robotics, nano robotics and more.
MIT robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks thinks people are vastly overestimating generative AI
He says that the problem is that generative AI is not human or even human-like, and it’s flawed to try and assign human capabilities to it.
Will robots ever have living, human skin? Researchers have been exploring the question and they’ve come up with some pretty unsettling results. I think it’s…
The first six months of the year have seen $4.2 billion invested in robotics, putting this year well on track to beat 2023’s 12-month total of $6.8 billion.
Digit’s first job will be moving totes around a Connecticut Spanx factory — which is most definitely not a euphemism.
At this early stage, Persona’s pitch doesn’t stray far from the various humanoid firms with which it’s set to compete.
Giving robots a human-like exterior has been the standard for years — centuries even. But giving them actual, living skin that can be manipulated into horrifying, slimy expressions? That’s new.…
Labor shortages are still fueling growth at automation firms like GrayMatter
GrayMatter self-reports that its systems currently produce “a 2~4x improvement in production line productivity [and a] 30% or more reduction in consumable waste.”
Waabi’s GenAI promises to do so much more than power self-driving trucks
For the last two decades, Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of autonomous trucking startup Waabi, has been developing AI systems that can reason as a human would. The AI pioneer…
Out of an abundance of caution, the car took two minutes to turn a corner.
The push to produce a robotic intelligence that can fully leverage the wide breadth of movements opened up by bipedal humanoid design has been a key topic for researchers.
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Inside Apple’s efforts to build a better recycling robot
Last week, TechCrunch paid a visit to Apple’s Austin, Texas, manufacturing facilities. Since 2013, the company has built its Mac Pro desktop about 20 minutes north of downtown. The 400,000-square-foot facility sits in a maze of industry parks, a quick trip south from the company’s in-progress corporate campus. In recent…
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Industries may be ready for humanoid robots, but are the robots ready for them?
How large a role humanoids will play in that ecosystem is, perhaps, the biggest question on everyone’s mind at the moment.
a16z-backed ZeroMark wants to give soldiers guns that don’t miss against drones
The product, which ZeroMark calls a “fire control system,” has two components: a small computer that has sensors, like lidar and electro-optical, and a motorized buttstock.
Amazon has received approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly its delivery drones longer distances, the company announced on Thursday. Amazon says it can now expand its…
Response time is Aerodome’s immediate value prop for potential clients.
When I attended Automate in Chicago a few weeks back, multiple people thanked me for TechCrunch’s semi-regular robotics job report. It’s always edifying to get that feedback in person. While…
We all fall down sometimes. Astronauts are no exception. You need to be in peak physical condition for space travel, but bulky space suits and lower gravity levels can be…
Kyle Vogt, the former founder and CEO of self-driving car company Cruise, has a new VC-backed robotics startup focused on household chores. Vogt announced Monday that the new startup, called…
iRobot has announced the successor to longtime CEO, Colin Angle. Gary Cohen, who previous held chief executive role at Timex and Qualitor Automotive, will be heading up the company, marking a major…
Lucid Bots secures $9M for drones to clean more than your windows
Cleaning the outside of buildings is a dirty job, and it’s also dangerous. Lucid Bots came on the scene in 2018 with its Sherpa line of drones to clean windows…
Alphabet-owned Intrinsic incorporates Nvidia tech into robotics platform
The first bit of news out of the Automate conference this year arrives by way of Alphabet X spinout Intrinsic. The firm announced at the Chicago event on Monday that it…
Microsoft, it seems, is hedging its bets when it comes to general-purpose robotics AI. At the end of February, the Windows maker spearheaded a massive $675 million Series B in…
A harsh truth: As bad as North American wildfires have grown over the past several years, things are only going to get worse. Climate change continues to accelerate the issue,…
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Humanoid robots are learning to fall well
The savvy marketers at Boston Dynamics produced two major robotics news cycles last week. The larger of the two was, naturally, the electric Atlas announcement. As I write this, the sub-40 second video is steadily approaching five million views. A day prior, the company tugged at the community’s heart strings…
London’s first defense tech hackathon brings Ukraine war closer to the city’s startups
Last week, the U.K. announced its largest ever military support package for Ukraine. The bill brings the U.K.’s total support for this financial year to £3 billion — not quite…
Sanctuary AI often isn’t mentioned in the same breath as humanoid robotics firms like Boston Dynamics, Agility, Figure and 1X, but the Canadian company has been operating in the space…
Amazon confirmed it is ending Prime Air drone delivery operations in Lockeford, California. The Central California town of 3,500 was the company’s second U.S. drone delivery site, after College Station,…
Much has been (and will continue to be) written about automation’s impact on the jobs market. In the short-term, many employers have complained of an inability to fill roles and…
Uber, Nvidia-backed Serve Robotics hits public markets with $40M splash
Serve Robotics, the Uber and Nvidia-backed sidewalk robot delivery company, debuted publicly on the stock exchange Thursday, making it the latest startup to choose going public via a reverse merger…
TechCrunch Minute: New Atlas robot stuns experts in first reveal from Boston Dynamics
This week Boston Dynamics retired its well-known Atlas robot that was powered by hydraulics. Then today it unveiled its new Atlas robot, which is powered by electricity. The change might…
