By Frank Tobe, Editor and Publisher, The Robot Report Toys often precede more serious inventions. So, putting judgement aside, and withholding laughs and other “tells”, here are some new robotic toys and gadgets hitting the market this year. Takara Tomy is introducing AutoMee, a $20 smartphone and tablet-cleaning robot, to the Japanese market in March.…
Management Shakeup at Adept Technology
Rob Cain replaces John Dulchinos as CEO of Adept Technology. Cain has worked with Adept for the past few months as an advisor and representative of Hale Capital Partners and crafted a restructuring plan approved by the company and it’s financial partners. Adept reported poor sales and lower than expected gross margins for the first…
Eight robotic toys and gadgets hitting the market this year
Eight new gadgets, gimmicks and toys will hit the market this year. Shown above is the new Grillbot; others include a little robot to clean your iPhone or iPad screen; WowWee’s new robot that can replace it’s head with your iPhone and you can remotely operate it; the new sleekly styled Romo; a new updated…
Keeping it Simple
The KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid. Hopefully they still teach this in engineering school. It is the essence of good design. Reducing the complex to the most simple form possible. What I find amazing is the leap that gets there. A team at UCLA came up with a technique for making micro supercapacitors. […]
Oshkosh and Lockheed Capitalizing On Demand For Military AGVs
The Oshkosh TerraMax UGV (right) is capable of tele-operations, being a leader or follower, and fully autonomous operation. The Marine Corps are evaluating it as part of their Cargo UGV initiative. Lockheed Martin’s SMSSs (squad mission support systems) (left) are rolling off the line for deployment in Afghanistan after winning the Army Project Workhorse competition.…
Robot Vision Systems Providers Doing Well
In a recent $4,650 research report by Market & Market, a TX-based research firm, they projected that machine vision systems and components will grow at an annual rate of 8%+ for 2013 to 2018. They attribute this growth to increased processing power, reduced costs and growth in robotics and automation thereby increasing the scope and…
Grishin Fund Invests In Hardware Incubator
Grishin Robotics continues it’s formulaic long-term investment strategy in robotics by partnering into the start-up mechanism. In this case its a new hardware incubator called Bolt located in Boston and connected with local robotics angel investors Colin Angle, Mick Mountz, Brad Feld, Semyon Dukach, and many other VCs. Bolt, a Boston-based hardware incubator (and not…
ROV market study shows dramatic growth for 2013-2023
In a new report analyzing the uses and needs for remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV) by the global oil and gas industry, Visiongain, a British research provider, has projected positive growth for both makers and users. They project rental and manufacturing revenue for ROVs in 2013 to be $2.5 billion. Visiongain’s report, ROVs in the…
Is this the cheapest floor robot?
O-Duster is an O-Cedar product from Channell Chemical Company, a division of the Freudenberg Group, a German conglomerate. The O-Duster has an auto-navigation feature and mops an area similar to the way other robotic vacuums do. The O-Duster will be available at U.S. retailers including HEB, Publix, ShopRite, Target, Wal-Mart and Winn Dixie for $39.99.…
Electric Car Racing
Is it entertainment or engineering? Car races are a huge deal in the US and around the world. It’s fun to see how fast we can make our machines go. The Indy 500 and Formula 1 racing, attract massive crowds and millions of dollars of investment. Drag racers compete to drive the fastest quarter mile […]
Willow Garage Changes Direction
By Frank Tobe, Editor and Publisher, The Robot Report For many years now Willow Garage has invested in open source and open platform robotics. Their goal has been a reflection of the vision of it’s founder (and chief funder) to advance the state of robotic technology in autonomous devices. And advance the state of robotics it…
Willow Garage Changes Direction
Willow Garage announced today that they are changing direction and deciding to focus on additional commercial opportunities that can become self-supporting. The generous funding from founder Scott Hassan will stop within 3 months and WG employes have been notified. PR2 robots around the world will continue to be supported as will ROS and its libraries…
Silicon Technology and Control
In the semiconductor world the rate of change is incredibly fast. Processor power continues to increase and costs continue to decline. It makes you wonder if there are any limits to miniaturization. Yet the trend to better, cheaper and faster has continued without pause for nearly 20 years. So it appears to be a safe […]
2012 Record Year for US Robot Industry
25,500 robots were sold in the US in 2012; $1.66 billion in revenue. This is a 17% year-over-year increase in units and 27% in dollars. Robotics Industry Association (RIA) estimates that 225,000 robots are now working in US factories. This represents 10% robot density, i.e., only 10% of companies that could benefit from using robots…
Open Source Vet Simulation Center
Dental students have robotic simulators, med students and surgeons have theirs too, and now Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine has one. They have a simulation center with two fully equipped exam rooms, two rooms for live video-feed observation and debriefing, and two robotic pets – a dog and a cat. Cornell’s Dr. Dan Fletcher…
iRobot’s stock takes another downward hit
iRobot's stock (IRBT:NASDAQ) has suffered once again from not meeting analyst expectations. The stock is down 13% on news that expectations for 2013 show continuing downward pressure on their Defense & Security Division although their Home Robots are doing quite well. On a good note, expected earnings for 2013, including those from newly acquired Evolution…
Robots on TV
Verizon and GE have produced television advertisements that include robots. The ads are playing frequently and nationally. They are good, they’re being talked about and tweeted, audiences like them, and they are great promotional pieces for the robotics industry. The ads are indicative of PR and advertising agencies’ growing awareness that people are becoming at…
GE and Verizon Advertise using robots
Verizon TV advertisements feature VGo Communications mobile telepresence robots streaming large amounts of data through their 4G LTE network. One ad shows a young home-bound student remotely attending and participating in a class; the other shows how kids, far away from the ocean, participated in a field trip to an ocean aquarium. GE’s TV ads…
Networks and Control
Ethernet is probably the most widely used means of communications in the industrial world. There, I said it. This has been a controversial subject for many engineers, and the tide has only recently turned to Ethernet as a de facto standard. There is always a lot of discussion in the controls community about communications. The […]