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Mind Controlled Robots
The first episode of Star Trek, The Menagerie, Captain Christopher Pike (not Kirk) lands on a distant planet and falls in love with a girl (Vina) that is captured by aliens that communicate telepathically. Pike attempts to rescue her, but quickly learns that her beauty is really only an illusion put on… Listen ⇢
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Robotic Bridge Builders
Amsterdam is a city of bridges, 1,500 in fact, and ripe for disruption. As a follow up to my story last May about robots in architecture, I am pleased to introduce the new bridge building machine, the MX3D. Dutch designer Joris Laarman has designed a pedestrian bridge for Amsterdam that will… Listen ⇢
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And the winner is…
Last Saturday, everyone waited with bated breadth to see if American Pharoah would win the Triple Crown. At the same time, under the California sun, 23 teams competed in the ultimate robotic contest – the DARPA’s Robotic Challenge (DRC). It should come as no surprise that a South Korean team won the $2… Listen ⇢
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Origami Robots Begin Their Fantastic Voyage
While speaking with an innovative robotic company this week, I concluded it takes a lot of humans to sell just one robot. The employment around robotics was further validated by Sunday’s WSJ article about Uber poaching scientists from Carnegie Mellon University. While there will be job fallout, robots in the long run will open… Listen ⇢
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The Little Spider-Bot That Could…
Last week, my daughter broke her wrist playing soccer. This week her team won the championship in spite of missing their starting goalie. Part of living is adjusting to challenges. Now, robots can also heal themselves by tapping into experiences from simulated lives, according to a new study from Pierre and Marie… Listen ⇢
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ABB – A Waking Tiger
Last week, at RoboUniverse, one of the largest suppliers of industrial robots was noticeably absent, ABB. This powerhouse of automation that has installed over 250,000 robots worldwide could be resting on its laurels, but the latest news from Zurich suggest otherwise. Earlier this year, ABB declared war on Baxter and Sawyer with their new… Listen ⇢
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RobotUniverse lands ln New York, and the World
This week, on the way to the first robotic conference in New York City, I felt a wave of déjà vu bringing me back to the early days of the Internet when trade shows were held in the dungeons of the Javits Center. Riding the escalator down, the excitement was palpable among the… Listen ⇢
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Inside the Navy’s Robot Testing Center
There is nothing like seeing something firsthand. As protestors sign petitions and organize movements outside the UN to Stop Killer Robots, the Navy is focused on something entirely different (at least according to The New York Times). The NY Times has been running an online two-part feature called, Robitica. Above is the installment… Listen ⇢
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Little Bots Do The Darndest Things
One of my fondest memories of hiking the Costa Rican rainforest are the “leaf cutter ants.” These minuscule inspects are able lift objects 100x times their weight. The line of worker ants goes on for tens of yards across the jungle floor. This week roboticists at Stanford University demonstrated the new… Listen ⇢
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My goal for this book is to help you at a pivotal point in your ideation process and, at the same, introduce you to a cadre of potential mentors. Through interviews with some of the most respected luminaries in this field, I aim to help fortify your resolve to follow your passions and build a billion-dollar company. The chapters of this book have been organized like field guide, as if you are setting out on a trip in the wild. Just like it’s essential to satiate yourself before scaling mountains, fast-tracking your innovation into the hands of early adopters is vital for achieving success on Main Street.
“Oliver Mitchell is among the world’s leading thinkers about robots and robotics. He is also one of the world’s leading visionaries about how humans think about robots, invest in robotics, and build robotics companies. …. The reader gets to be the beneficiary of Oliver’s creation of a new knowledge ecosystem.” – Dan Burstein, New York Times bestselling author of 15 nonfiction books, and Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Millennium Technology Value Partners.
“This book … [draws] from interviews with industry experts who share firsthand experiences from real-world ventures, the author distils invaluable lessons from both their successes and failures. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to my students and colleagues involved in robotics research and education as an exceptional resource for guiding their entrepreneurial pursuits.” Katsuo Kurabayashi, Professor and Chair, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, USA.



