In an earlier post I referred to the first computer as the Eniac computer. That drew a lot of criticism, which is OK with me. There seems to be some controversy and I would like to try and expand on the topic a little bit. Let’s face the fact that without the modern “computer”, very […]
2011 Was A Good Year for Korean Robotics
According to Chosun Media, Korea produced $1.87 billion of industrial robots in 2011 and exported $453 million. The remainder was for domestic use. Year-over-year production was up 20% and exports were up 120%. Japan received 74% of 2011’s exports while China and the EU got the rest. As part of a government-stimulated program, Korea plans…
Inventing Myths
Who invented the steam engine? If you think it was James Watt, you would be wrong. It was actually Thomas Newcomen. But Newcomen’s version was very inefficient. Watt solved the efficiency problem making the steam engine the “workhorse” of the industrial revolution. In fact, what James Watt actually invented, in addition to the planetary gear, […]
To Open Source or Not
Article by The Robot Report in AUVSI’s Mission Critical quarterly magazine on the arguments for and against open sourcing in robotics. Whole issue is about commercial robots and includes an article about investing in robotic stocks. Previous issue is about robots in agriculture — also a good read.
Headlights That See Through Rain; A Robotic Seamstress
By Frank Tobe, Editor/Publisher, The Robot Report Normally I don’t write about scientific breakthroughs that may or may not turn into commercial products. But these two are sure winners and I wanted to share them with you. Headlights That See Through Rain Graphic courtesy of Carnegie Mellon Illumination and Imaging Lab. A while back the…
Smart Headlights See Through Rain
CMU released papers and videos showing their new smart headlight system which improves visibility by constantly redirecting light to shine between particles of rain. This involves a camera to track the motion of rain and snow and then applying algorithms to predict where those particles will be and then shooting the light so as not…
A Factory of Robots to Make Uniforms
There was an uproar when it became known that China is producing the uniforms and flags for the American Olympic team for this year’s London Olympics. The Pentagon is worried about the same situation regarding our military’s uniforms and has contracted SoftWear Automation to build a complete robotic production facility to cut, assemble and sew…
Inventing International
Due to the extraordinary responses of our international readers, I think it is important to provide some context for my last post. Inventing in the United States is something of a national pastime. It’s a little like baseball. Many, many people are engaged in the process. In my years in industry, every company and shop […]
Join the Wild Ride
Job Opening at ReThink Robotics“for a developer relations engineer – a person to lead development of a ROS-based SDK for a new low cost manipulator that will be readily available for researchers and educators, and to interact with researchers worldwide to make sure the SDK is useful for them,” says CTO and founder Rodney Brooks.…
Fascinating Projections – $100 Billion Robotics Industry by 2020
Markets and Markets: Service robotics revenue forecast for 2017: $46 billion at 17.4% annual growth. Intl. Federation of Robotics: service robotics forecast much lower figures but similar growth rate. Daiwa Capital Markets analyst projects industrial robotics revenue for 2020 to be $41 billion. Spurring the growth: Apple and Foxconn investing $7 billion for industrial robots…
July 4th Reflections
The 4th of July is a great time to reflect on what makes America special. This can be a very controversial subject. The purpose here is not particularly political, but to consider the values that make us who we are. Because who we are as people, what we believe, is part of what motivates […]
U.S. Robotics Job Opportunities Rise 29% in 2012
U.S. corporate recruiters and staffing firms posted more than 6,000 online job ads requiring robotics skill sets in May.