robot News of 07/24/19

UPS Forms A New Subsidiary For Drone Delivery And Seeks FAA Approval To Fly

UPS has big plans for drone delivery, and it’s taking two key steps to put them into action. First, it’s building its own dedicated subsidiary focused entirely on drone delivery, called UPS Flight Forward, and it’s seeking FAA ...

Alphabet’S Loon Balloons Developed Clever Strategies To Pass 1m Hours Flying In Earth’S Stratosphere

Alphabet’s Loon subsidiary, which aims to blanket the Earth in high-speed broadband internet connectivity, has passed the 1 million-hour mark in terms of total time spent in Earth’s stratosphere across all its flights. The balloons ...

Lyft Opens To The Public Autonomous Driving Data Set From Its Level 5 Self-Driving Fleet

Lyft is offering to the public a set of autonomous driving data that it calls the “largest public data set of its kind,” containing over 55,000 3D frames of captured footage hand-labeled by human reviewers, data collected by seven ...

Freedom Robotics Raises $6.6m To Take The Hassle Out Of Founding A Robotics Startup

Freedom Robotics raises $6.6M to take the hassle out of founding a robotics startup image After years — decades even — of promises, the robotics industry is finally beginning to realize its potential. Nowhere is this phenomenon clearer than in the world of warehouse automation. Freedom Robotics, a new Bay Area-based startup, came out ...

Fetch Robotics Raises $46 Million To Expand Warehouse Automation Internationally

Placed against our sci-fi expectations, robotics have large fallen short — with one notable exception. In 2019, automation is a mainstay in  factories and warehouses. There the technology has been proven out in the field, and VCs are happy to ...

Daimler And Bosch’S Driverless Parking Gets OK To Operate Without Human Supervision

We’ve reached a new milestone in the long road to getting AI-based self-driving systems to be truly autonomous. Daimler and Bosch have now received approval from German regulators to run their automated driverless parking function without a ...

Amazon Is Opening A Pair Of New Robotic Fulfillment Centers In Ohio

Amazon this morning announced its intentions to open a pair of robotic-powered fulfillment centers in Ohio. The two warehouses — both larger than 700,000 square feet — will be located in the north of the state, in Akron and Rossford, ...

Meet The Robots Toyota Is Bringing To The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games

Meet the robots Toyota is bringing to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games image Tokyo’s 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games are fast-approaching, and Toyota is playing a key role in on-site mobility and transportation. The Japanese automaker has unveiled five robots it’s also going to be bringing to the games, ...

Tiny UK Startup Takes On Google’S Wing In The Race To A Drone Traffic Control System

A future where drones can easily and cheaply do many useful things such as deliver packages, undertake search and rescue missions, deliver urgent medical supplies, not to mention unclogging our roads with flying taxis seems like a future worth ...

Georgia Tech’S Ant-Sized Micro-Robots Move Through Vibration

The above image is a shot of Georgia Tech’s latest robot posed next to a penny. The 3D printed bot is roughly two millimeters in length — or about the size of the world’s smallest ants, per the school. The tiny devices are designed to move using ...

Altitude Angel Launches An API For Safer Drone Flights

Altitude Angel , a U.K. startup that provides safety, data and traffic management systems for drones, is launching a de-confliction service for drone flights — available via its developer API platform. “The dynamic system will ...

China Startup Deals Shrink As Fundraising For Investors Plummets

China startup deals shrink as fundraising for investors plummets image Chinese startups continue to weather tough times as private investors, caught in a cash crunch, are concentrating money into fewer deals. China’s deal-making activity for startups in the six months ended June halved from a year ago to 1910, ...

These Robo-Ants Can Work Together In Swarms To Navigate Tricky Terrain

While the agility of a Spot or Atlas robot is something to behold, there’s a special merit reserved for tiny, simple robots that work not as a versatile individual but as an adaptable group. These “tribots” are built on the model of ...

Amazon Is Building A Voice-Controlled Robot That’S Like A ‘Mobile Alexa’

Amazon Is Building a Voice-Controlled Robot That’s Like a ‘Mobile Alexa’ image Amazon is developing a higher quality version of the Echo speaker and ramping up work on its home robot. The company plans to release the new Echo by next year, according to people familiar with the product. Prototypes of the cylindrical speaker are ...

MIT’S Human-Mirroring Robot Nails The Bottle Cap Challenge

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has a robot that can mirror the actions of a human just by watching their bicep. This has a number of practical applications, including potentially assisting a person to lift large ...

Amazon Reportedly Ramps Development On Alexa-Powered Home Robot On Wheels

Bloomberg reported last April that Amazon was working on a home robot codenamed ‘Vesta’ (after the Roman goddess of the hearth and home) last year, and now the publication says that development on the project continues. Plus, the report ...

This New Autonomous Startup Has Designed Its Delivery Robot To Conquer Winter

Refraction, a new autonomous delivery robot company that came out of stealth Wednesday at TC Sessions: Mobility, sees opportunity where most AV startups are avoiding: regions with the worst weather. The company, founded by University of Michigan ...

Luminar Eyes Production Vehicles With $100m Round And New Iris Lidar Platform

Luminar eyes production vehicles with $100M round and new Iris lidar platform image Luminar is one of the major players in the new crop of lidar companies that have sprung up all over the world, and it’s moving fast to outpace its peers. Today the company announced a new $100M funding round , bringing its total raised to ...

May Mobility Reveals Prototype Of A Wheelchair-Accessible Autonomous Vehicle

May Mobility reveals prototype of a wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle image Autonomous transportation startup May Mobility is doing more than just talking about accessibility when it comes to self-driving transportation tech development. The company recently began developing a wheelchair-accessible prototype version of its ...

Bankrupt Maker Faire Revives, Reduced To Make Community

Bankrupt Maker Faire revives, reduced to Make Community image Maker Faire and Maker Media are getting a second chance after suddenly going bankrupt, but they’ll return in a weakened capacity. Sadly, their flagship crafting festivals remain in jeopardy, and it’s unclear how long the reformed ...