CHRONICLING THE ROBOT INDUSTRY
SINCE 2011 © ROBOT RABBI
Before discussing the wonders of marine robotics, I must comment on what is happening in Rio. More than any other Olympics, robots are playing a critical roll in capturing and reporting on athletes. Getty Images recently opened up a free part of its photo collection to consumers with the launch of an … Read More
Last year, a leading group of academics and AI scientists called for a complete ban on “offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control.” The letter was signed by more than 20,000 people, including such luminaries as Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark, and Toby Walsh. The initiative was also endorsed by many … Read More
Drones are everywhere today, from disrupting flights at JFK to filming your neighbors’ next reality TV segment. Like us, the eagle in the video below has had enough of annoying pilots giving robots a bad name… All kidding aside, I marvel at the creativity of some drone applications from agricultural “bot-swarms” … Read More
The man with the jackhammer looked back seeing his power to stop traffic for nearly thirty minutes, and proudly smiled. “Can’t they do this at five in the morning?,” my exacerbated Uber driver complained to me. I thought about for a second, and replied, “Why do they (humans) have to do it at … Read More
As we prepare for the busiest travel days of the year, it is time to reflect on how far transportation has progressed since the horse & buggy. This past week the number of cities testing autonomous taxis grew to include Boston, with MIT upstart nuTonomy. Equally important to the driverless ecosystem is … Read More
Our global population is devouring food in record numbers, depleting valuable resources at alarming rates. The romantic vision of a family farm is more of a postcard of our nostalgic past. Today, agriculture is big business that relies heavily on data driven technologies and robotics to maximize yield. Mark Bryant is a farmer in … Read More
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” rings as a warning to mankind when we yield too much power to machines. HAL, the tyrannical computer in Stanley Kubrick’s movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was cleverly a one letter shift from I.B.M. Recently released letters from Kubrick reveal his fear of the computing … Read More
Already with the demise of the Great Pumpkin, comes the rise of tinsel and lights. Jiggle bells today translates to the hum of trucks delivering good tidings. While e-commerce continues to outpace brick & mortar, it also creates major financial problems with free shipping promos and last mile deliveries. Last year alone, the US Postal Service lost $5 … Read More
One of my favorite TV shows as a kid was Get Smart. Who can forget The Cone of Silence, the Shoe Phone, and, of course, Agent 99. Max, Agent 86, was funniest when he failed, using the same excuse: When thinking about autonomy, missing the target by even “that much” is not good enough, especially when people’s … Read More
One of the most interesting discussions from this past week at RoboUniverse was Dr. Florian Röhrbein’s talk about his work in Neurorobotics as part of the Human Brain Project (see prototype below). Röhrbein has created a suite of robots including iCub, Roboboy, and a robotic mouse that maps the synapses of the rodent’s brain. This … Read More
