Announced amid a deluge of news at this week’s Delivering the Future event in Seattle was word that Amazon will begin testing Agility’s Digit in a move that could bring the bipedal robot to its nationwide fulfillment centers. It’s baby steps as these things go, and such early-stage deals don’t necessary mean something bigger down…
In May of this year, TechCrunch ran a piece titled “Figure’s humanoid robot takes its first steps.” The story was a firsthand account of my visit to the startup’s South Bay offices. The headline was a reference to both the company’s first year of existence and its stated plan to hit a key milestone by…
[A version of this piece first appeared in TechCrunch’s robotics newsletter, Actuator. Subscribe here.] The topic of generative AI comes up frequently in my newsletter, Actuator. I admit that I was a bit hesitant to spend more time on the subject a few months back. Anyone who has been reporting on technology for as long…
Ripcord, a startup developing robots that can automatically digitize paper records, is hoping to raise between $20 million to $25 million in a new funding round that would value the company at $110 million pre-money, according to a source familiar with the matter and a pitch deck viewed by TechCrunch. Alphabet’s GV, Lux Capital, and…
There’s a significant labor shortage in construction in the U.S. Though there’s been a steady flow of new hires on a monthly basis, there have been almost as many workers quitting in the same period, which has left a deficit in the industry; the incoming hires have merely been stemming the flow of workers leaving….
Ten years ago this December, Bot & Dolly became one of a dozen or so robotics companies snapped up during Google’s robotics acquisition spree. The San Francisco-based firm, best known for its special effects work on films like “Gravity,” was folded into a new portfolio with ambitious plans to shake up the industry. For a…
Thread (not to be confused with Threads), a startup developing a robotics platform to collect inspection data for utilities, today announced that it raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Badlands Capital with participation from Minnkota Power Cooperative, Generational Partners, Rosecliff Ventures, Excell Partners, Homegrown Capital and Kevin O’Leary’s Wonder Fund…
[A version of this post appeared in TechCrunch’s robotics newsletter, Actuator. Subscribe here.] The last time I’d spoken with the Nvidia at any length about robotics was also the last time we featured Claire Delaunay onstage at our Sessions event. That was a while ago. She left the company last July to work with startups…
Of all the holy grails in robotics, learning may well be the holiest. In an era when the term “general purpose” is tossed around with great abandon, however, it can be difficult for non-roboticists to understand what today’s systems can — and can’t — do. The truth of it is that most robots these days…
“Flexibility” isn’t a word one often applies to the manufacturing process. Changing things up on the assembly line is a resource-intensive activity, but automation and robotics could go a ways toward removing some friction from the process. That’s effectively the thesis statement behind Machina Labs. The L.A.-based robotic metalworking firm distills things into the simplest…