Zurich-based ABB, which develops power and automation solutions, presented an impressive display of flash-charging technology at a conference last week, demonstrating its ability to power an electric bus in 15 seconds. ABB reported at the 60th congress of the International Association of Public Transport in Geneva that it is working together with the city’s public
Boomerang Systems, which builds automated parking garages, today announced a manufacturing and licensing agreement with John Bean Technologies Corporation, a global technology solutions provider. Boomerang says the arrangement will allow the company to reduce its cost structure and improve its ability to deliver a superior product in significant volumes and expedited fashion. “This is a
Yesterday, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a preliminary statement of policy concerning automated vehicles. The statement says NHTSA is encouraged by the technologies being developed and wants to work with stakeholders to “chart a steady course forward.” Proponents of automated vehicle technology should be encouraged as well, given the overall tone of
Several news organizations, including TechCrunch and VentureBeat, reported today that Double Robotics is now shipping its unique “wheels for your iPad” telepresence robot. Double, as the system is called, has managed to stand out in the somewhat crowded telepresence field because of its attractive design and relatively inexpensive price tag ($1,999 if you order today)
The biggest name in robot-assisted surgery is Intuitive Surgical, whose da Vinci Surgical System has been installed in more than 2,000 hospitals since its introduction in 1999. However, with sales of medical robots topping a billion dollars annually (Intuitive itself reported revenue of $611 million in its most recent quarter) and expected to grow, they are
ArcBotics, an educational robotics company based in Cambridge, Mass., recently earned the latest Kickstarter victory for open-source robotics. After being featured as one of Kickstarter’s Top 3 projects in a weekly email earlier this month, the company successfully funded Sparki, an Arduino-based robot designed as an introduction to programming and electronics for kids ages 11 and up.
Most media coverage of drones to date has been related to their military applications, both because of the inherent controversy and because the military is far and away the biggest user of the technology. That’s not going to change anytime soon. President Obama gave a counterterrorism speech yesterday addressing drone policy that will be dissected
In our recent conversation with Sam Park, vice president and chief technology officer at South Korea’s Yujin Robot, Park emphasized that his company is looking for ways to remove complexity from its robots by replacing it with technology that is already available in most homes. The most obvious example of this idea is using a
The new — somewhat confusingly named — Xbox One was announced today by Microsoft, but more importantly for the world of robotics, a new Kinect motion-sensing camera was also confirmed. The original Kinect made it affordable for both professional roboticists and enterprising hobbyists to endow their robots with powerful 3-D motion capture, depth sensing, facial recognition and voice
South Korea-based Yujin Robot popped onto the radars of many robot enthusiasts recently thanks to its contribution to the TurtleBot 2: a new mobile base called Kobuki that replaces the iRobot Create used in the original TurtleBot. For those who aren’t familiar with the TurtleBot, it looks like a dorm-room TV stand on wheels, but
