New numbers out of Crunchbase this week see robotics investments once again trending in a positive direction. The previous two years presented a steady drop in overall numbers, following a record 2021 driven by pandemic-fueled job loss. As we head into the second half of the year, 2024 is on track t
Genesis AI, a startup that aims to build a foundational model for powering all kinds of robots, has emerged from stealth with a giant $105 million seed round co-led by Eclipse and Khosla Ventures.Founded last December by Zhou Xian (pictured above, left), who holds a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mel
The savvy marketers at Boston Dynamics produced two major robotics news cycles last week. The larger of the two was, naturally, the electric Atlas announcement. As I write this, the sub-40 second video is steadily approaching five million views. A day prior, the company tugged at the community’s hea
Modern warfare is dominated by many thousands of ultra-cheap, ultra-fast drones that conduct robotic suicide missions to deliver explosives to enemy territory. Private companies have scrambled to develop tech to counter these unmanned aerial systems, but these solutions often aren’t sufficient, leav
Samsung said on Wednesday that its adding Googles Gemini AI to its home robot Ballie through a partnership with Google Cloud. Users will be able to ask the robot different queries to get answers from Gemini, said the companies.Samsung aims to tap into Gemini’s multimodal capabilities for its robot.
Last month, Apple offered up more insight into its consumer robotics work via a research paper that argues that traits like expressive movements are key to optimizing human-robot interaction. “Like most animals,” starts the report, “humans are highly sensitive to motion and subtle changes in movemen
Robotics startup Mytra has been quietly operating behind the scenes since its May 2022 founding in a bid to rethink warehouse automation. The outfit brings a solid pedigree to the table, founded by automotive vets from EV firms, including Tesla and Rivian.Warehouse/fulfillment has been a white-hot c
The snake robot form factor has existed for decades. In addition to the diversity it adds to the world of automation, the design has several pragmatic attributes. The first is redundancy, which allows for the system to keep chugging even after a module is damaged. The second is a body that makes it
Apple is exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid robotic form factors, according to a new scoop from longtime Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The intel comes on the heels of a research paper from the iPhone maker that explores human interactions with “non-anthropomorphic” robots — specifically a Pixar-
In the beginning of 2021, Alphabet shuttered Loon. It was a familiar story within the annals of Google X history: an ambitious moonshot with tremendous upside that sputtered out prior to gaining any sort of meaningful traction after nearly a decade.“Despite Loon’s extraordinary technical progress,”
