The “smart home” industry is booming these days, attracting interest and investment from companies with their feet in every corner of the tech sector. Healthy as that accelerating competition is for innovation, however, it raises a corollary concern over the proliferation of proprietary systems that can’t communicate. Even as more and more groups are trumpeting
In a report released this week, the Robotic Industries Association said that for the first nine months of the year, North American robotics orders have declined while shipments have risen. A total of 15,731 robots valued at $978.5 million were ordered from North American companies in the first nine months of 2013, a decrease of
Bluefin Robotics and the Naval Research Laboratory recently sent a long-endurance unmanned underwater vehicle from Boston to New York, a trip that took more than 100 hours, the groups said today. The mission was completed by the Naval Research Lab’s Reliant “Heavyweight” UUV, an advanced version of the Bluefin-21 that, when loaded with a low-frequency broadband
Aldebaran Robotics and Nuance Communications reported this week that Aldebaran’s Nao robot will integrate new voice capabilities from Nuance that will allow it to have more natural conversations with humans. Massachusetts-based Nuance sells the popular Dragon speech recognition software and was recently revealed to be behind Apple’s Siri digital assistant. Nao has integrated voice recognition
Agricultural robotics company Harvest Automation reported today that it has successfully raised $11.75 million in Series C financing. The Massachusetts-based company says the funds will be used to further commercialize the HV-100, its flagship product. HV-100 robots are designed for greenhouse, hoop house and nursery environments, where, as you would expect, they perform the most
The teams competing in the DARPA Robotics Challenge come from some of the most prestigious universities and technologically innovative organizations in the world — places like MIT, Carnegie Mellon and NASA. However, even for them, it represents uncharted territory. “It’s a huge learning experience,” admits Bill Borgia, director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Lockheed
A new documentary on the Maker Movement, appropriately titled “Maker,” is on track for completion thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. With seven days remaining, the project has nearly doubled its original $15,000 goal. Additional pledges will be accepted until Nov. 4. This is the second documentary for the team behind “Maker.” Their first effort,
The National Robotics Initiative, which launched in 2011 and is spearheaded by the National Science Foundation, earlier this week announced $38 million in new investments in the program’s second round of funding. Along with its partner agencies — the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture and NASA — it said the funding was
The demand for roboticists is growing, and universities are starting to take notice. Johns Hopkins University, for one, says it sees an increasing need from industry for people who can design and deploy advanced robotics systems. In response the school has launched a Master of Science in Engineering in Robotics degree program. The program is
Unmanned aircraft systems leader AeroVironment and helicopter maker Eurocopter said today that they have signed a cooperative agreement to explore potential joint military and commercial business opportunities. The announcement occurred at the Association of the United States Army annual meeting in Washington. The majority of AeroVironment’s UAS are fixed-wing vehicles, though it does produce the Shrike
