Yukai Engineering, the maker of the Qoobo robotic cat tail pillow, has revealed a soft robot that nibbles on a user’s fingertip. They hopes the “somewhat pleasing sensation” will brighten your day.
Robots and AI assist in designing and building Swiss university’s ‘hanging gardens’
Architecture and construction have always been, rather quietly, at the bleeding edge of tech and materials trends. It’s no surprise, then, especially at a renowned technical university like ETH Zurich, to find a project utilizing AI and robotics in a new approach to these arts. The automated design and construction they are experimenting with show […]
“she is lonely, and skeptical of my ability to ease her loneliness”
“Unit Two Does Her Makeup” by Laura Duerr (published this year): “She is smiling, but I see and catalog and evaluate thousands of smiles every day. Hers is tentative.” “Maslow’s Howitzer” by Miriam Oudin (previously): “I shipped from the factory with s…
Machina Labs emerges from stealth with $16M raised for on-demand manufacturing robotics
Machina Labs today announced a $14 million Series A for its robotics and AI-based manufacturing. The round, led by Innovation Endeavors and featuring Congruent Ventures and Embark Ventures, brings the Los Angeles firm’s total funding to $16.3 million to date. The news also finds the company effectively coming out of stealth, following pilots with NASA […]
New space walks
A space exploration update for November 2021. In Earth orbit news, one crew returned from the International Space Station, while a new crew rode a SpaceX flight to board the ISS. The ISS altered its orbit by a mile to avoid incoming debris from an old…
This intrepid robot is the Wall-E of the deep sea
The car-sized Benthic Rover II is roaming the seafloor 13,000 feet deep.
Tagalong robots follow you to learn where you go
Burro makes carts that help growers of trees and vineyards with harvests.
Ecologies, empathy, parenting, robots, and unanticipated consequences
Two scifi stories about tech inventions that don’t work out as their designers planned. Ken Liu’s “Quality Time” (from last year) looks into “unsolved problems in home automation” and a friendship at a startup. “Nobel Prize Speech Draft of Paul Winterh…
‘Dystopian world’: Singapore patrol robots stoke fears of surveillance state
Trial of robots to police ‘undesirable’ behaviour such as smoking or breaching social-distancing rulesSingapore has trialled patrol robots that blast warnings at people engaging in “undesirable social behaviour”, adding to an arsenal of surveillance te…
Robots: stealing our jobs or solving labour shortages?
From fast food to farming, Covid-19 has accelerated the rise of the worker robots. This in turn will put more jobs at risk and makes the need to reframe society ever more urgentAs the coronavirus pandemic enveloped the world last year, businesses incre…