The robots are already here In a blog post published last week, Meta asks, “Where are the robots?” The answer is simple. They’re here. You just need to know where to look….
Category: Actuator
Conventional wisdom
Conventional wisdom If you’d told me five years ago that I would be flying to Chicago in March to attend a supply chain and logistics show, you would have been greeted by…
Mistakes were made (and that’s fine)
Mistakes were made (and that’s fine) Forgive the scattered nature of this week’s Actuator. No big, overarching monologs this week — just a handful of things I’ve been thinking about lately that…
Barcelona nights
Barcelona nights I’ve yet to walk the entire floor at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year (that’s the goal for this afternoon), but my sense is the majority of the robots…
Two days in the Bay
Two days in the Bay It was genuinely a bit surreal seeing deep green hills in the South Bay last week. Growing up in Fremont, I know the change from brown to…
Autonomation
Autonomation “Jidoka” is a new one to me. TRI (Toyota Research Institute) CEO Gill Pratt described the concept as “Automation with a Human Touch.” The anglicized version of the notion is “Autonomation”…
Hype machines
Hype machines The age-old question in my industry is, “Where are we in a given hype cycle?” For now, crypto news cycle dominance has, thankfully, died now, largely through its own self-destructive…
There are still robotics jobs to be found (if you know where to look)
There are still robotics jobs to be found (if you know where to look) A lot has happened in the half-year since we caught up with Ayanna Howard, dean of the Ohio…
Then call them ‘robots’
Then call them ‘robots’ Before they were robots, they were “androids” or “automatons.” The word “robot” is commonly accepted as having arrived in English through — of all places — a Czech…
Building up and tearing down
Building up and tearing down I managed to squeeze the remaining vestiges out of CES 2023 in last week’s Actuator. The good news is that things are starting to pick up again…