China’s robotaxis charged ahead in 2021

Autonomous driving startups in China are in an arms race to put passengers in their machine-driven vehicles. Every few weeks, news arrives that another major player has got the greenlight to launch a new pilot program or a small-scale service. These press releases, often dotted with regulatory jargon and flowery language to aggrandize the companies’ […]

ロボットの最適な設計をアルゴリズムが考えると、驚くほど「奇妙な形状」ができあがる

ロボットの設計には、どうしても人間の先入観が入りがちだ。こうしたなかマサチューセッツ工科大学（MIT）の新しいオープンプラットフォームは、アルゴリズムにロボットを自動で設計させることにより、そのタスクに最適な形状をはじき出そうと試みている。そこから生まれた奇妙な形状の“ロボット”の数々をご覧にいれよう。
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Goodyear Develops Airless Tire for Starship’s Delivery Robots

Starship needs maintenance-free tires for the thousands of deliveries its robots make. Starship Technologies wants its autonomous delivery robots to be as maintenance-free as possible, so the company asked Goodyear to develop a new longer-lasting tire. Starship robots are used for last-mile package and food deliveries, and each one relies on six wheels. They are […]

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How Meituan is redefining food delivery in China with drones

On a congested sidewalk next to a busy mall in Shenzhen, a 20-something woman uses a smartphone app to order a milk tea on Meituan, a major food delivery company. In under ten minutes, the pearl-white drink arrives, not on the back of one of the city’s ubiquitous delivery bikes, but descending from the cloudy […]