Hardware

Today at Build 2022, Microsoft unveiled Project Volterra, a device powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform that’s designed to let developers explore “AI scenarios” via Qualcomm’s new Neural Processing SDK for Windows toolkit. The hardware arrives alongside support in

Drone delivery has been a long time coming, but its actual implementation has largely arrived in fits and starts. Some companies (Alphabet's Wing) have made decent headway, while others (Amazon) have struggled. There are still plenty of issues to contend with ahead of any sort of mainstream ado

The push behind the massive influx of warehouse robotics funding is largely driven by one entity: Amazon. There are other factors driving the industry, of course, including the pandemic, labor shortages and supply chain constraints, but Amazon is forever looming in the corner, forcing companies to

If I were to make a list of things that I didn’t think needed to get smarter, bike pedals would be somewhere near the top of the list. And yet, when Redshift Sports showed me its shiny (literally!) new pedals, I had one of those “omg this makes so much sense” moments. In a nutshel

Google Assistant's arrival on the Galaxy Watch 4 has been like a look time coming, for a variety of reasons. First, Samsung's attempt at its own in-house assistant, Bixby, was essentially a non-starter from day one. Second, the two companies have been openly discussing their joint plan for

On a recent trip to the Bay Area, I took a few hours to pay a visit to Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab (BAIR). Professor Ken Goldberg walked me around the lab and introduced me to a couple of projects the students have been working on. FogROS immediately grabbed my attention — a

Amazon’s cute little Astro robot has been scurrying its way around my apartment for the past few weeks. It has no arms to scratch its own head in confusion, but I am willing to do that for him. As part of Amazon’s Day 1 Editions program, the robot is a $1,000 invitation-only program wit

In 2017, we noted that smartphone screen sizes had settled into a sweet spot between five and six inches. In hindsight, that may well have been wishful thinking. A brief respite aside, it seems that phones have only continued to embiggen, driven by a continued spec war and panel manufacturers like

The other day, Brian reported on Sony’s new LinkBuds headphones, including its partnership with “what if Brian Eno was a piece of computer software” app Endel. The company uses really fascinating AI technology to generate soundscapes and music tracks to help your brain do its best

Kicking things off this week with some data culled by the folks over at Crunchbase that's very much in line with what we've been saying on Actuator all along. The past couple of years have been genuinely transformational for robotics. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the conversations I

A little bright spot in a market that was already struggling with declining sales well before a global pandemic, supply chain crisis and inflation concerns struck. The North American market saw a small — but hopeful — 4% increase in shipments over the same time last year, per new number

There may be some irony in upgrading a laptop designed around the principles of user repairability/upgradeability. Though certainly Framework isn't expecting too many folks who purchased last year's model to replace their system with the latest and greatest. The company says this round'

I tried out the brand new Withings ScanWatch about six months ago, and concluded that it was a great smartwatch for people who prioritize their health over wearing a tiny iPhone-like device on their wrists. Today, the French company announced a classier-looking version of the same watch, borrowing

Surprise! While we were all (understandably) preoccupied with the latest addition to Sony's excellent over-ear headphones, the LinkBuds S managed to mostly fly under the radar. This likely happened for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the company's confusing naming scheme. It&