Robotics

Sports have long served as an important test for robots. The best-known example of the phenomenon may be the annual RoboCup soccer competition, which dates back to the mid-1990s. Table tennis has played a key role in benchmarking robot arms since a decade prior. The sport requires speed, responsive

Roboticists at The Faboratory at Yale University have developed a way for soft robots to replicate some of the more unsettling things that animals and insects can accomplish — say, a reptile self-amputating a limb or ants building bridges by temporarily fusing their bodies. In one demo video, we

By now, we're all pretty familiar with cybersecurity for computers. But what would happen if a robotic arm on a production line was hacked and instructed to kill its human co-worker? That “device security” is the kind of thorny problem that Rome-based startup Exein is tackling.  T

Amazon has decided to discontinue its Astro for Business device, a security robot for small- and medium-sized businesses, just seven months after launch.  In an email sent to customers and employees on Wednesday, provided to technewss, the reason for putting Astro for Business on the shelf is si

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

Up to now, the humanoid robotics industry has been all promises and pilots. While important in the eventual deployment of new technology, these programs involve a small number of robots and often don't graduate into anything more meaningful. On Thursday, however, Agility announced that it has e

Giving robots a human-like exterior has been the standard for years — centuries even. But giving them actual, living skin that can be manipulated into horrifying, slimy expressions? That’s new. The new work, published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, is very much just an exper

Most coverage of humanoid robotics has understandably focused on hardware design. Given the frequency with which their developers toss around the phrase “general purpose humanoids,” more attention ought to be paid to the first bit. After decades of single-purpose systems, the jump to more gener

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&#

We all fall down sometimes. Astronauts are no exception. You need to be in peak physical condition for space travel, but bulky space suits and lower gravity levels can be a recipe for disaster, causing them to trip over themselves. The answer to this very specific issue may well be robotic limbs.

"">iRobot has announced the successor to longtime CEO, Colin Angle. Gary Cohen, who previous held chief executive role at Timex and Qualitor Automotive, will be heading up the company, marking a major shift from his predecessor, Angle, a cofounder of the company who held the role from 1997

Much has been (and will continue to be) written about automation's impact on the jobs market. In the short-term, many employers have complained of an inability to fill roles and retain workers, further accelerating robotic adoption. The long-term impact these sorts of sweeping changes will have

Now that humanoids are all the rage in the robotics industry, Boston Dynamics on Tuesday officially retired theirs. The Hyundai-owned firm has always marched to the beat of its own drummer. Even so, it's an odd decision as funding pours into the category by the hundreds of millions. Venturing a

Humanoids have sucked a lot of the air out of the room. It is, after all, a lot easier to generate press for robots that look and move like humans. Ultimately, however, both the efficacy and scalability of such designs have yet to be proven out. For a while now, Collaborative Robotics founder Brad