CHRONICLING THE ROBOT INDUSTRY
SINCE 2011 © ROBOT RABBI
While applying to business schools in 1980, Steve Case prophetically wrote: “I firmly believe that technological advances in communications are on the verge of significantly altering our way of life…” In his personal statement, he further predicted (ten years before Congress decommissioned the ARPANET) that screens would become “information lifelines” … Read More
As the playoffs are in full swing, everyone is littering their speech with baseball apologies, “We are only at the bottom of the first inning for all these technologies,” declared Pano Anthos at last week’s RoboLab forum. When illustrating his point, Anthos deconstructed one of XRC Labs‘ portfolio companies which … Read More
I have two kids in college and one of my biggest concerns is their knowledge that what they have labored hard to acquire will become obsolete by the time of graduation. Our age is driven by the hypersonic accelerations of technology and data forcing innovative educators to create new pedagogical … Read More
As Hurricane Florence raged across the coastline of Northern Carolina, 600 miles north the 174th Attack Wing Nation Guard base in Syracuse, New York was on full alert. Governor Cuomo just hung up with Defense Secretary Mattis to ready the airbase’s MQ-9’s drone force to “provide post-storm situational awareness for … Read More
At the new Alibaba restaurant, Robot.he, in Shanghai the human hostesses have been relegated to smiling and pointing at touch screens. The hard work of interacting with guests and serving dinner is done by mobile phones and mobile robots that look oddly similar to Amazon’s warehouse rovers. Cao Haitao of Robot.he … Read More
Memphis at 1am is quite possibly the busiest airport without passengers on the globe. Touring the 880 acre FedEx facility, I marveled at the speed and efficiency of the automation technologies that can process close to a half a million shipments an hour and 250 flights a day. The cargo hub … Read More
Ever since the première of “Steamboat Willie” in 1928, The Walt Disney Company has pushed the envelope of imagination. Mickey Mouse is still more popular worldwide than any single human actor. In fact, from that one cel an entire world of animated characters were birthed. The entertainment powerhouse demonstrated last … Read More
Two weeks ago, RobotLab hosted its most thought provoking panel yet, on The Future Of Work and Universal Basic Income. Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang presented his dystopian outlook on the demise of jobs for “Normal People” caused by the acceleration of automation and artificial intelligence. Yang’s solution, a $1,000 … Read More
The lights are going out at malls across the United States with more than 20 major retail bankruptcies in 2017. As of today, store closures have skyrocketed to 7,000 doors throughout the nation, affecting such iconic brands as Toys R Us, Walgreens, Gap, Sam’s Club, The Children’s Place, Hallmark, Stride … Read More
The Financial Times reported earlier this year that one of the largest clothing manufacturers, Hong Kong-based Crystal Group, proclaimed robotics could not compete with the cost and quality of manual labor. Crystal’s Chief Executive, Andrew Lo, emphatically declared, “The handling of soft materials is really hard for robots.” Lo did leave … Read More
