Google robotics to become a separate entity under Alphabet?
By tech2 News Staff: Earlier this year, Google had released an interesting video of Spot, a 160-pound dog robot navigating an office and then heading outside on its own. It is a smaller version of the Big Dog that first popped its head when Google acquired Boston Company. As the new changes come into effect, Boston Company is now Alphabet-owned and not a part of Google.
It will continue to build robots, and falls under Google X Projects (for now), a subsidiary of Alphabet. The other subsidiaries include Google, Nest Labs, Google X, Calico, Google Ventures, Google Capital and Google Life Sciences.
A new report says that the “company will create a separate division for robotics within the renamed umbrella entity Alphabet”, citing a person related to the matter. Google has acquired roughly eight companies related to robotics including military grade robotics company Boston Dynamics. It will likely allow Boston Dynamics to operate with some independence. Cont'd...
Magic: The Gathering Is Turing Complete
From Alex Churchill:
In the discussion on this site I assemble a Universal Turing Machine from Magic: the Gathering cards.
But doesn't Magic involve the players making lots of choices?
Normally, yes, it does. But occasionally in normal gameplay you get a sequence of three or four events in a row that are forced to happen by the cards and the rules of the game. The machine below just extends this idea to millions of forced choices in a row.
The idea of my Magic Turing machine is that the players do nothing at all, except when the game offers them a choice.
Once the in-game "machine" has started, processing continues without requiring any choices from the players, with one category of exceptions: Some of the cards in the machine say "You may [do X]. If you do, [Y happens]." In these cases, the machine arranges that the players will be able to do X, in precisely one way. It just requires the players to always choose to take the game up on any options they're offered... ( cont'd )
Can Technology be Too Disruptive?
Disruptive innovation creates new markets, disrupts existing markets and replaces prior technology and thereby evolving existing markets to be productive, sustaining and value-driven.
Development of Battery-Free Multi-Rotation Absolute Encoder
In recent years, there have been many demands for equipment with high productivity to have a system that retains positioning information, even after the main power supply is turned off.
Advances in farming robotics could address shortage in agricultural workers
By Steve Brachmann for IPWatchDog: More and more, the agricultural world is looking towards the mechanization of labor processes through robotics as a way of potentially increasing their productivity. Robotics was identified as a sector of investment growth in agricultural tech by an April 2014 white paper on agriculture technologies published by the entrepreneurship and education non-profit Kauffman Foundation. Robotics is a regular focus of ours here on IPWatchdog, most recently visited in our coverage of the incredible advancements in walking and jumping robotics pioneered by Boston Dynamics, a Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) subsidiary. With American farmers already heavily involved in the regulatory conversation involving the commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, we thought that it would be interesting to delve into the world of farming robotics and see the recent advances in that particular field.
It’s important to understand first that the robotics being developed for commercial use on farms won’t be stand-alone humanoid units ranging through fields to pick crops. Any piece of hardware implementing an algorithm which automates some of the manual work of farming falls under this heading. One good example of this is the LettuceBot, a precision thinning technology which works to visually characterize plants in a lettuce row, identify which plants to keep and eliminating unwanted plants to optimize yield. The unit doesn’t move by itself but is guided along by a tractor instead. The technology has been developed by Blue River Technology of Sunnyvale, CA, a company which has attracted $13 million in investment between 2011 and 2014 to commercialize this product. The LettuceBot’s creators hope toprovide the technology as a third-party service to farm owners before manufacturing the unit for commercial sale. Cont'd...
Top Exoskeleton Projects
Who wouldnt want to be the next Ironman wearing an indestructible suit? Fear not, help is on the way from a few cutting edge companies. Here are 5 of them.
Special Tradeshow Report for PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2015
PACK EXPO 2015 will be held from September 28th - 30th in Las Vegas, Nevada. This RoboticsTomorrow.com Special Tradeshow report aims to bring you news, articles and products from this years event.
Robotic Vision Inspection System
Although the system was developed primarily for the inspection of orthopedic parts it can equally be used for the automated inspection of any critical parts, for example aeronautical.
euRathlon 2015 Challenge
Sixth day of euRathlon 2015 - euRathlon 2015 Grand Challenge - Part 2
25 September 2015, Piombino, Italy.
View euRathlon 2015 Grand Challenge - Part 1. Day Five
View euRathlon 2015 Challenge: Two-domain Scenarios. Day Four.
View euRathlon 2015 Challenge: Two Domain Trials - Day Th ree
View euRathlon 2015 Challenge: Single Domain Trials - Day Two
View euRathlon 2015 Challenge: Single-domain trials - Day One
RoboSAM Can Assess Its Situation and Call a Human for Help When It Needs Assistance
If the robot is not sure whether it can complete the task-for example if the part is "buried" within the bin-it takes pictures of its situation and calls a remotely located human (the "human on call") for help.
Technology gap gives foreign firms the edge in China robot wars
BY GERRY SHIH for Reuters: In a cavernous showroom on the outskirts of this port city in northeastern China, softly whirring lathes and svelte robot arms represent Dalian Machine Tools Group's (DMTG) vision of an automated future for Chinese manufacturing.
On closer inspection, however, most of the machines' control panels bear the logos of Japan's FANUC Corp or the German conglomerate Siemens.
The imported control systems in DMTG's products – used in the assembly of everything from smartphones to cement trucks – are symbolic of the technology gap between Chinese and foreign industrial automation firms, just one of several challenges facing China's ambition to nurture a national robotics industry.
Chinese robotics firms are also grappling with a weakening economy and slumping automotive sector, and industry insiders already predict a market bubble just three years after the central government issued policies to spur robotics development.
"Last year everybody thought they could produce a robot," said Alan Lee, director of Asia sales and business development at Boston-based Rethink Robotics. "When you have market saturation you'll have filtering and M&A. These guys will be the first layer to suffer."
It is a storyline familiar from other new industries such as solar panels: Beijing's policies and subsides trigger a wave of low-margin, low-cost contenders to rush into the market, where, with no meaningful technology of their own, they struggle to compete on price alone. Cont'd...
Building a Rope Bridge With Flying Machines
From Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich:
The Aerial Construction project is a collaboration between the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control and the Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication. The objective is to investigate and develop methods and techniques for robotic aerial construction... ( project homepage )
OMRON to Acquire U.S. Based Adept Technology
OMRON plans to acquire 100% of the outstanding shares of Adept common stock through an all cash tender offer followed by a second-step merger. OMRON will offer Adept investors $13.00 per share of Adept common stock, which represents a 63% premium over the closing price for Adept's common stock on September 15, 2015. This values Adept at approximately $200 million. OMRON will fund the tender offer through cash on hand.
Commenting on the acquisition, Yutaka Miyanaga, OMRON Industrial Automation Business Company President, said, "We are delighted Adept Technology, a world leader in robotics, has agreed to join OMRON. This acquisition is part of our strategy to enhance our automation technology and position us for long term growth. Robotics will elevate our offering of advanced automation."
Rob Cain, President and Chief Executive Officer of Adept, added, "We are excited about the opportunity to join OMRON, a global leader in automation. Together, our products will offer new innovative solutions to customers all around the globe."
Full Press Release:
The 3D Printshow - Learn About 3D Printing
The 3D Printshow is the first dedicated 3D printing event anywhere in the world.
WowWee brings expensive university bots to store shelves
By Corinne Iozzio for Scientific American: Hong Kong–based WowWee's success stems from bringing university research projects to life that might otherwise languish in the prototype stage. A licensing agreement with the Flow Control and Coordinated Robotics Labs at the University of California, San Diego, for example, provides WowWee with access to patents and the labs with a healthy cash infusion. The collaboration has already netted a series of toy robots that balance like Segways. More recently, the avionics lab at Concordia University in Montreal began working with the company to perfect flight algorithms for a four-rotor drone. Next, chief technology officer Davin Sufer says he has his eye on the Georgia Institute of Technology and its work with swarming behaviors, which would allow a group of robots to function in tandem.
In the case of Switchbot, WowWee adapted a locomotion system developed in part by former U.C. San Diego student Nick Morozovsky. The robot moves on tank-tread legs either horizontally to navigate uneven terrain or on end to stand and scoot fully upright. Morozovsky built his prototype with off-the-shelf parts, including a set of $50 motors. The motors were a compromise; each one had the size and torque he wanted but not the speed. Over the past few years he has worked with WowWee to customize a motor with the exact parameters needed and to cut the final cost of the part down to single digits.
That back and forth yields low-cost, mass-producible parts, which means university-level robotics could become available to everyday people. “One of the reasons I went into mechanical engineering was so I could create real things that have a direct impact,” Morozovsky says. “I didn't expect that to necessarily happen in the process of grad school.” Cont'd...
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