In 2021, the company says it used 214 million or so pounds of single-use plastic in its packaging.
Nonprofit ocean conservation firm Oceana, on the other hand, put that figure at approximately ~700 million pounds.
Take for example, its ongoing efforts to reduce package weights and replace plastics with paper products.
The first is a robot that is primarily deployed in recycling facilities to sort through different materials.
We’ve also received a pretty significant grant from the Michigan Department of Environment for further deployments of our technology.
As crucial as the ocean is to countless industries, we lack the kind of systematic knowledge of it that we have of the surface.
This is partly due to the simple fact that the ocean is gigantic and there’s simply no way (or need) to monitor all of it.
Cheap solutions like buoys are great but limited to surface measurements, and are subject to the whims of weather and currents.
“There is such a clear need for safe, reliable and continuously updated data about water quality,” said Ester Strommen, CEO and co-founder of Syrenna.
Free-floating, free-divingI saw a prototype of the WaterDrone, as they call it, while visiting startups last spring in Oslo, where Syrenna is based.
It did so, however, with the ambitious goal of creating a walking bipedal robot in a year’s time.
Humanoid robots are having a moment.
The goal of the deal is to “develop next generation AI models for humanoid robots,” according to Figure.
“We are excited to collaborate with Figure and work towards accelerating AI breakthroughs,” says Microsoft Corporate VP, Jon Tinter.
Mechatronics are easier to judge in a short video than AI and autonomy, and from that perspective, the Figure 01 robot appears quite dexterous.
When it was first unveiled in the summer of 2021, Xiaomi’s CyberDog designed was best described as a more nightmarish version of Boston Dynamics’ Spot.
Announced this past summer, CyberDog 2 looks a bit more friendly than its predecessor.
The robot dog is still no Sony Aibo.
Watching it do its little dance really did remind me of a scaled down version of Boston Dynamics’ familiar robot.
The above video also suggests that the robot dog might one day replace the real thing, owing to its ability to speak back.
Uber, along with partners Mitsubishi Electric and autonomous robotics startup Cartken, are launching a service in Japan that will use self-driving sidewalk robots to deliver food to customers.
Uber and Cartken, a startup founded in 2019 by former Google engineers behind the short-lived Bookbot, already operate a delivery service together in Fairfax, Virginia and Miami.
Cartken’s autonomous sidewalk robot, known as Model C, will be used for the delivery service.
Cartken’s teleoperations interface will be used by Mitsubishi Electric employees who are trained in Cartken’s remote guidance system, according to an Uber spokesperson.
“We hope that this newly announced initiative will serve as a catalyst for the spread of robot delivery services in Japan,” Tanaka said.
In the past several years, the kitchen has increasingly become a focal point for the world of automation.
Others, including Zume Robotics, have been less successful – the pizza robot firm shut its doors last year after attempting a major pivot into Earth-conscious food packaging.
The new cash infusion follows a January 2021 raise of $7.7 million, bringing the total funding up to $22.5 million.
MaC Venture Capital, MFV Partners, Interwoven Ventures and Alumni Ventures joined existing backers, Construct Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Promus Ventures and Red and Blue Ventures.
Chef isn’t revealing specific sales figures, only saying that it has “robots at food companies in five cities around the US and Canada” including “Fortune 500 food companies.” Bhageria also tells TechCrunch that it has quadrupled “recurring revenue from 2022 to 2023,” though, again, nothing more specific than that.
Muscle mass tends to decline as you get older, impacting your walking and increasing the risk of falls.
“Using the wearable robot EX1, older adults can effectively perform simple exercises such as walking and fitness, thereby improving their quality of life,” says research lead, Professor Wan-hee Lee.
“Our findings provide a solid foundation for developing various types of improved and advanced wearable robots,” Lee.
“This will further expand the global wearable robot market, promoting further research and commercialization.”It’s not certain when or if the Samsung EX1 might actually hit the market.
Even so, anticipate assistive wearable robotics becoming a lot more prevalent over the next decade.
Aniai, a startup that has built a burger-grilling robot, Alpha Grill, said today it has raised $12 million.
“Burger chains hire six to eight kitchen staff per shift to grill burgers,” Aniai CEO Gunpil Hwang said.
If the user’s patty does not meet its cooking recipes, specifications and requirements, Alpha Grill promptly notifies the cooking staff to ensure quality control.
It has also been testing Alpha Grill with burger chains in the U.S. since last year.
Other companies in this space include Miso Robotics, which is behind Flippy, a burger-flipping robot; Botinkit, a cooking robot maker in China; and Chef Robotics in San Francisco.
When it launched in 2019, Dusty’s FieldPrinter added a clever new dimension to the world of construction automation.
The little robot is smaller than the first gen, thus allowing it to better move around obstacles.
The 23-pound robot sports a wider print head and a bevy of on-board sensors for improved navigation.
Today’s news also marks the arrival of FieldPrint Platform, which is centered around BIM-to-field — that’s effectively bringing digital information into real-world construction sites.
“Our new FieldPrint Platform supports the seamless flow of data from the design phase, to the field, and back to the trailer,” cofounder and CEO Tessa Lau notes.
The deal’s latest hurdle is the European Commission, which has set a February 14 deadline to reach a final decision.
According to a new report, the EU regulatory body is set to vote against acquisition, citing the perceived anti-competitive nature of deal.
In July, Amazon announced that it was lowering its asking price from $61 to $51.75 per share.
The day the initial deal was announced, iRobot cut its headcount by 10% — around 140 people – as part of a restructure.
As of this writing, share prices have dipped below $20 – one-third of where things where when the deal was announced.
