In 2012, Amazon quietly acquired a robotics startup called Kiva Systems, a move that dramatically improved the efficiency of its ecommerce operations and kickstarted a wider revolution in warehouse automation. Last week, the ecommerce giant announced another deal that could prove similarly profound, agreeing to hire the founders of Covariant, a startup that has been … Read more
In a cluttered open-plan office in Mountain View, California, a tall and slender wheeled robot has been busy playing tour guide and informal office helper—thanks to a large language model upgrade, Google DeepMind revealed today. The robot uses the latest version of Google’s Gemini large language model to both parse commands and find its way … Read more
In late April a video ad for a new AI company went viral on X. A person stands before a billboard in San Francisco, smartphone extended, calls the phone number on display, and has a short call with an incredibly human-sounding bot. The text on the billboard reads: “Still hiring humans?” Also visible is the … Read more
There’s no doubt humanoid robots are unnerving, but what if they had skin that helped them appear more like the species they’re supposed to mimic? Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a new nightmare technology using engineered living skin tissue and human-like ligaments, that they can now bind to the surface of robots … Read more
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, stated that artificial intelligence (AI) will eventually eliminate all jobs, but he believes this is not necessarily a bad development, reported CNN. Speaking at a startup and tech event in Paris on Thursday, Musk said, “Probably none of us will have a job,”. Elon Musk was speaking remotely via webcam … Read more
How Amazon’s service fares in the desert could end up underscoring the natural barriers to making a solid business out of drone deliveries, at least absent technological advances. “We won’t take orders when the temperature gets above 104 degrees,” Calsee Hendrickson, a director of product and program management for Amazon Prime Air, told Phoenix’s 12News … Read more
You don’t need to have been petrified by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Skynet-commissioned cyborg assassin in 1984’s The Terminator to fret that super-strong, all-terrain, bipedal humanoid robots sprinting up steps, pulling backflips, and righting themselves could be programmed to break our necks on sight. (And laser guns, never give them laser guns.) With the Old Atlas, we … Read more
Peter Chen, CEO of the robot software company Covariant, sits in front of a chatbot interface resembling the one used to communicate with ChatGPT. “Show me the tote in front of you,” he types. In reply, a video feed appears, revealing a robot arm over a bin containing various items—a pair of socks, a tube … Read more
One of those people is Calice Becker, vice president perfumer at Givaudan, director of Givaudan Perfumery School in Paris, and the nose behind Dior J’Adore and other iconic fragrances. In 2018, she saw an opportunity to streamline the complicated development process and spearheaded the birth of Carto, an AI-powered tool that is the “brain” of … Read more
Some robots, including from Boston Dynamics, are already doing warehouse work. Do you expect to see that humanoid workforce growing in the coming years? Warehouse work is one of the great applications at the moment because there’s such a need for people. Employers are really frustrated with the difficulty of getting humans and training them … Read more
