As automakers and climate-focused legislators continue to push electric vehicle adoption, they’ll need all the help they can get. If the idea of using public EV charging cables gives you pause, Hyundai and Kia have developed the Automatic Charging Robot. Shown off online last week, Hyundai Motor Group’s ACR aims …
Read More »Elon Unveils Optimus Robot
(Image: Tesla)When Elon Musk first boasted about Tesla’s upcoming humanoid robot at AI Day 2021, details were fairly limited. We knew Optimus’ basic specs (height, weight, carrying capacity, etc.) but little about its internals, and its stated purpose was simply to perform “dangerous, repetitive, boring tasks.” Now we have a …
Read More »Northwestern University Builds Tiny Robot Crabs
(Photo: Northwestern University)Engineers at Northwestern University have created micro-robots that mimic the peekytoe crab—but on an almost unbelievably smaller scale. The half-millimeter “crabs” constitute the world’s smallest remote-control robots. Smaller than a flea, they’re able to walk along the edge of a penny or thread a sewing needle. Despite (or …
Read More »Tesla’s Optimus Robot
(Image: Tesla)Like it or not, humanoid robots are here. Optimus, a human-like droid powered by AI, is Elon Musk’s latest project—one he insists will be worth more than Tesla’s current vehicle business. Musk originally unveiled the concept for Optimus (the nickname for what’s otherwise called Tesla Bot) at the company’s …
Read More »Stretch Box Lifting Robot
Boston Dynamics has spent years posting creepy videos of lifelike robots, but it started selling its first real product last year in the form of a $75,000 robot dog called Spot. Now, the company has unveiled its second production model robot, and the first designed for commercial warehouse applications. …
Read More »New Spherical Robot
We’ve all been laser-focused on Mars as a site for future human outposts, but let’s not forget about the Moon. It’s only marginally less habitable than Mars right now, and it’s a lot closer. Thanks to radiation and temperature variation, however, the safest place for a long-term human presence …
Read More »Robot Response Times
(Credit: onurdongel/Getty Images)New work in robotics research at MIT suggests that long-term bottlenecks in robot responsiveness could be alleviated through the use of dedicated hardware accelerators. The research team also suggests it’s possible to develop a general methodology for programming robot responsiveness to create specific templates, which would …
Read More »Boston Dynamics’ Handle robot dominates parkour on wheels in new footage
Boston Dynamics’ wheeled Handle robot received much fanfare earlier this month when DFJ partner Steve Jurvetson slipped us an early video from a company Keynote. Today we have more details on Handle in the form of a shiny HD video. We already knew Handle could manage some pretty sick hurdles …
Read More »The $800 laundry-folding robot for those who don’t have a housekeeper
LAS VEGAS — Can R2-D2 do this? (Would R2-D2 want to do this?) CES 2017 brings us a robot that automatically folds your laundry. It’s Foldimate, the brainchild of a US-Israeli company of the same name. A typical laundry hamper of clothes can be folded in about three minutes. A …
Read More »This genetically engineered ‘living robot’ moves with rat heart cells
This past week saw an intriguing confluence of multiple disciplines, in the form a new artificial stingray model its creators call a “living robot,” and an unconventional means of studying the human heart. Driven by rat cells and modeled after a fish, it might seem like (and be) an odd …
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