La empresa estadounidense Savioke, creadora de unos pequeños robots para hoteles, anunció hoy que ha recibido una inyección de 15 millones de dólares liderada por Intel Capital, la filial de inversión del gigante de semiconductores Intel.
La firma EDBI, filial de inversión de la agencia de desarrollo de Singapur y Northern Light Venture Capital participaron también en la ronda de financiación de 15 millones de dólares, en la que la mayor aportación vino de Intel Capital, aunque no se especificó el monto.
Savioke señaló en un comunicado que utilizará los fondos para aumentar las ventas, la mercadotecnia y el desarrollo de nuevas funciones para su robot Relay.
Long the butt of endless jokes and victim of failed ambitions, Segway is not only still alive, but is now expanding.
The New Hampshire-based company announced today that it would launch a personal robotics business this year, in a press release that is woefully short on details.
The company infamous for making the Segway scooter will continue to make that product under its Segway PT (Personal Transportation) division. This will be complemented by a Segway Robotics division that will “create a futuristic concept by integrating existing technological proposals.”
China is to invest $20 million in Israeli robot technology, in the hope that the tech Israel develops will help catapult its economy.
Last week, the Israeli Robotics Association signed an agreement with a coalition of Chinese investors and the city of Guangzhou, one of China’s biggest industrial centers. China’s $20 million investment will be used to build a robotics R&D center in Israel dedicated to developing robot tech that China will be able to use to automate and modernize its massive industrial base.
Can traverse rocky terrain and assist in search and rescue and reconnaisance missions
Locust-inspired TAUB robot (credit: Tel Aviv University)
A locust-inspired miniature robot that can jump 3.35 meters (11 ft.), covering a distance of 1.37 meters (4.5 ft.) horizontally in one leap is designed to handle search-and-rescue and reconnaissance missions in rough terrain.
He’s a coworker unlike any other — not afraid to wade into dangerous situations, take on boring tasks for hours on end or answer obscure maintenance questions you may have. “He” is really an it, a robot called the Guardian, which is part of a system of airborne, sea- and land-based robots being developed by GE to autonomously check assets like locomotives for damage, probe for abnormalities like unusually high temperatures and alert maintenance crews when it finds something amiss.
A robot with a unique personality might sound like an oxymoron. Or science fiction. But that’s the goal of London-based startup Emotech, launching on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt London 2015 today, with a plan to crowdfund its first product, a voice-controlled robot assistant called Olly, early next year.
The bot takes the form of an animated eyeball that is housed in a lamp-shaped cup designed to roll around on your tabletop. So if the thought of a large blinking eyeball that swivels around to look at you when you speak — and talks back — makes you feel at all uneasy, well, this may not be the bot for you.
People with severe motor disabilities are testing a new way to interact with the world—using a robot controlled by brain signals.
An experimental telepresence robot created by Italian and Swiss researchers uses its own smarts to make things easier for the person using it, a system dubbed shared control. The user tells the robot where to go via a brainwave-detecting headset, and the robot takes care of details like avoiding obstacles and determining the best route forward.
The robot is essentially a laptop mounted on a rolling base—the user sees the robot’s surroundings via the laptop’s webcam, and can converse with people over Skype.
When customers can’t find a product on a shelf it’s an inconvenience. But by some estimates, it adds up to billions of dollars of lost revenue each year for retailers around the world.
A new shelf-scanning robot called Tally could help ensure that customers never leave a store empty-handed. It roams the aisles and automatically records which shelves need to be restocked.
The robot, developed by a startup called Simbe Robotics, is the latest effort to automate some of the more routine work done in millions of warehouses and retail stores. It is also an example of the way robots and AI will increasingly take over parts of people’s jobs rather than replacing them.
Robots may still be a long away from experiencing emotion, but one French company believes that they can be used to improve connections between humans in areas such as health care and education.
RoboCARE Lab, a company based in Toulouse, France, has launched an ambitious campaign to place robots in nursing homes and schools across the country. The hope is that these robots could help the elderly remain in closer contact with family while stimulating their memories and spirits to improve their long-term health.
There’s been much speculation surrounding potential drone delivery services, but with regulation debates slowing its progress, Starship Technologies are to begin testing an alternative autonomous delivery system using pedestrian robots.
