Boston Magazine Profiles Rodney Brooks of Rethink
Long article about Rodney Brooks co-founder of Rethink and former CTO at iRobot:
...Brooks cofounded the bedford-based iRobot in 1990, and his motivation, he explains, had something to do with vanity: “My thoughts on my self-image at the time was that I didn’t really want to be remembered for building insects.” Then he pauses for a moment and laughs. “But after that I started building vacuum-cleaning robots. And now there is a research group using Baxter to open stool samples. So now it’s shit-handling robots. I think maybe I should have quit while I was ahead. You know, that’s something no one ever says: ‘I hope my kid grows up to open stool samples... (full article)
Rethink Robotics Introduces Industry-First Robot Positioning System
This disruptive technology enables Baxter to switch between tasks without retraining by using environmental markers, called Landmarksâ„¢, in conjunction with its existing, embedded vision system.
Reverse OCR
From Reverse OCR's tumblr:
I am a bot that grabs a random word and draws semi-random lines until the OCRad.js library recognizes it as the word.
By Darius Kazemi, creator of Alternate Universe Prompts, Museum Bot, and Scenes from The Wire... (see the latest results)
Small DC Motors Power Mini Reconnaissance Robot
Ruggedized motors, coupled with a titanium housing and clever clutch design deliver a dumbbell-sized unmanned ground vehicle that can survive a 30 foot drop onto concrete.
3D Reconstruction Firm Paracosm Has Closed $3.3 Million In Seed Funding
From Paracosm:
Paracosm, a cloud-based software company, raised 3.3 million in seed round funding to further its mission to 3D-ify the world. The round, led by Atlas Venture, includes contributions from iRobot, Osage University Partners, BOLDstart Ventures, New World Angels, Deep Fork Capital and a number of angel investors.
Paracosm's advanced three-dimensional reconstruction technologies create digital models of physical spaces. When shared with machines, these models serve as blueprints which provide robots and applications a greater sense of awareness and understanding of the physical world. Such technologies are valuable for robotics, video game development, special effects, indoor navigation applications, and for the improvement of both virtual and augmented reality experiences... (full press release)
Telemedicine Robots Bring Expertise to Remote Areas
Sophisticated controls and positioning deliver a lifelike experience to doctor and patient alike.
MegaBots: Live-Action Giant Robot Combat
From MegaBots Kickstarter:
The mad scientists at MegaBots, Inc. have been zealously working on the prototypes and final design of 15-foot-tall, 15,000-pound, walking humanoid combat robots with giant, modular pneumatic cannons for arms. A driver-and-gunner team pilot each MegaBot in a battle against other MegaBots, vehicles, and a variety of other defenses and obstacles in live-action combat – the likes of which the world has only dreamed of through video games and movies...
...At our minimum funding level ($1.8M), we can build two robots. They’ll duke it out in an epic 1-on-1 deathmatch tournament. At higher funding levels, we can build more MegaBots and unlock the gameplay options you know and love: team deathmatches, free-for-alls, king of the hill, capture the flag, home base capture, escort missions, and more! (Kickstarter)
Grabit Inc. Demos Electrostatic Gripper
From Grabit Inc.:
Enhanced Flexibility
Grabit technology eliminates the need for part-specific grippers and minimizes gripper changeover, dramatically reducing costs and downtime.
Gentle Handling
Grabit grippers offer scratch and smudge-free handling with its clean grasping and eliminates the need to remove residue left by vacuum cups. Grabit’s uniform grasping effect eliminates high “point stresses” on large format glass sheets.
Low Energy & Quiet Operations
Grabit products operate at ultra-low energy levels providing cost savings and enabling mobile robot applications, and also offer quiet operations improving factory conditions and supporting the adoption of collaborative robots... (homepage)
High-torque, Compact Motors And Rugged Design Create Economical, Light-weight Bomb-disposal Robot.
In a world in which an abandoned suitcase, a box, or even a pile of rubble can conceal an improvised explosive device (IED), bomb-disposal robots have become essential.
UCSD Investing in Robotics
San Diego already has major industry and defense players and employers with many robotics technologies and applications. There are also significant manufacturing sectors in San Diego and nearby Tijuana.
Watch That Windows Update: FTDI Drivers Are Killing Fake Chips
From Brian Benchoff at Hack A Day:
The FTDI FT232 chip is found in thousands of electronic baubles, from Arduinos to test equipment, and more than a few bits of consumer electronics. It’s a simple chip, converting USB to a serial port, but very useful and probably one of the most cloned pieces of silicon on Earth. Thanks to a recent Windows update, all those fake FTDI chips are at risk of being bricked. This isn’t a case where fake FTDI chips won’t work if plugged into a machine running the newest FTDI driver; the latest driver bricks the fake chips, rendering them inoperable with any computer.
Reports of problems with FTDI chips surfaced early this month, with an explanation of the behavior showing up in an EEVblog forum thread. The new driver for these chips from FTDI, delivered through a recent Windows update, reprograms the USB PID to 0, something Windows, Linux, and OS X don’t like. This renders the chip inaccessible from any OS, effectively bricking any device that happens to have one of these fake FTDI serial chips... (full story with workaround solution)
Current Transducer Implementation Phenomena
Implementation of a current transducer is typically a straightforward affair. In the event that the output is not as expected, it must be understood that the source of the challenge may be rooted in the mechanical, magnetic or electric nature of the device.
At Japan Robot Week, Mechanical Barista Treats Visitors to Coffee
From Japan Times:
iRobot Unveils Its First Multi-Robot Tablet Controller for First Responders, Defense Forces and Industrial Customers
From iRobot:
The uPoint MRC system runs an Android-based app that standardizes the control of any robot within the iRobot family of unmanned vehicles. Utilizing the same intuitive touchscreen technology in use today on millions of digital devices, the uPoint MRC system simplifies robot operations including driving, manipulation and inspection, allowing operators to focus more on the mission at hand... (full press release)
NASA's Free Flying Robot Challenge
From NASA, Google's Project Tango, and Top Coders:
Welcome to the NASA Free Flying Robot Mission Patch & Naming Challenge sponsored by the NASA Tournament Lab!
In 2017, NASA is aiming to launch a robot that will be used on-board the International Space Station (ISS). The robot has been tentatively called the “Free Flying Robot”. Not that catchy, right?
So here’s where NASA needs your help – we need the Topcoder community to help design a custom mission patch AND develop a name for the Free Flying Robot.
So what is a Free Flying Robot? It’s a robot that is capable of functioning autonomously, but can also be controlled by a flight crew on-board the ISS or from Earth. It can conduct zero gravity robotics experiments, carry mobile sensors such as an RFID reader for logging inventory & inspect items using a built in camera
Currently on the ISS there are robotic devices called “SPHERES” (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites), and the new Free Flyer Robot program is being seen as a step forward in the use of robotic devices in spaceflight... (submission form)
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Industrial Robotics - Featured Product
PI USA - Faster Electro-Optical Wafer Probing
High-density electro-optical PIC wafer probing enables parallel testing of photonic integrated circuits using arrays of mini piezo alignment engines operating simultaneously across a wafer. Each ultracompact aligner delivers nanometer-level positioning and fast, closed-loop optical coupling, enabling simultaneous electrical and optical probing at multiple points. This scalable approach increases throughput, shortens test cycles, reducing cost of test for high-volume PIC and EPIC manufacturing.
Robotics and Automation - Featured Company
MVTec LLC
MVTec is a leading international manufacturer of software for machine vision used in all demanding areas of imaging like the semi-conductor industry, inspection, optical quality control, metrology, medicine or surveillance. In particular, software by MVTec enables new automation solutions in settings of the Industrial Internet of Things. MVTec is the developer and vendor of the general purpose machine vision software products HALCON and MERLIC.
