Brian Heater
Hardware Editor
The Latest from Brian Heater
Twelve South adds a collapsible, portable MacBook stand
This is the sort of thing I definitely would have been all over when I still traveled a bunch for work. Twelve South has long been the go-to for MacBook stands and the like, and today the company intr
Android 13 rolls out to Pixel devices today
In a blog post, Google today confirmed that the latest version of Android is starting to roll out to Pixel devices, following the release of the final beta almost exactly a month ago. Users with non-G
TrashBot uses AI to sort recyclables
There are a number of startups working to improve trash sorting with robots. AMP Robotics is near the top of the list, coupling a picker and a conveyor belt to sort materials in large, automated facil
Hyundai announces $400M AI, robotics institute powered by Boston Dynamics
When Hyundai acquired Boston Dynamics at the end of 2020, there were plenty of open questions. Chief among them was why we should assume this acquisition would be any different than the past few? The
A newsletter that’s mostly about Amazon and iRobot
Shortly after the Amazon/iRobot news was announced on Friday morning, a colleague asked me if I was surprised. The short answer is yes and no. Yes, in the sense that the news dropped suddenly on what
Maker of the Muse meditation headband raises $9.5M
I’m a mediocre meditator, at best. Some weeks I meditate every morning, and others go by without doing it at all. Turns out healthy habits are a lot harder to develop than good ones. I’ve tried a
Meet Xiaomi’s new humanoid robot, CyberOne
Long gone are the days when a consumer electronics company could simply announce a phone and call it a day. At this morning’s big launch event in Beijing, Xiaomi followed up its foldable news by han
Motorola goes flagship for the latest foldable Razr
Happy unofficial foldables week! An increasingly rare bright spot in the broadly struggling smartphone space, manufacturers are looking toward the emerging form factor to help kickstart them out of th
Tune in now: Launching a weight loss startup and knowing when to pivot
Swathy Prithivi speaks modestly about her years at Uber and Opendoor, but her role as manager at those powerhouse firms made her well-positioned to set out founding her own startup. Atomic VC was ther
Samsung’s new foldables arrive August 26
Over the past year, Samsung recognized something we’d known all along: The clamshell form factor makes sense. It’s something those of us who are old enough to remember a pre-smartphone era are wir
Smart mug maker Ember just spun out a life sciences company
Ember’s first decade has been a journey. The Southern Californian startup first hit our (and most folks’) radar as a mug company. The company captured a fair bit of press attention with its high-e
Samsung Galaxy Pro 2 feature a smaller design, improved sound
Galaxy Buds have quietly been a great part of Samsung’s line. It’s a strange thing to say about anything coming from a company that’s generally anything but quiet, but its earbuds have long been
Samsung ditches the physical bezel, picks up a Pro Model for the Galaxy Watch 5
Samsung giveth and Samsung taketh away. The latest additions to the Galaxy Watch line present a bit of both. The headline on each side of that equation is the addition of a “Pro” version to the ev
iRobot announced a 10% staff cut the same day its Amazon news dropped
You’d be forgiven for missing this bit of news. I fully cop to not seeing it myself amid the buzz of last week’s Amazon acquisition news on Friday (knowing nod to Robot Report for pointing it out)
Biden signs CHIPS bill in bid to supercharge US semiconductor production
After initial setbacks with its earlier iteration, the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 sailed through both chambers of Congress early this week. The bill, which held uncharacteristically broad bipartisa
Geek+ raises another $100M for its warehouse robots
Two things are for certain: 1) There continues to be a lot of excitement around warehouse robotics and 2) Geek+ is extremely good at raising money based on that fact. The Beijing-based warehouse robot
Streaming royalties are broken, Rashida Tlaib thinks Congress can fix them
There’s never been an easy time to be a musician, but for many in and around the industry, the 21st century has presented one calamity after another for those hoping to make a living through music.
Amazon is buying iRobot for $1.7B
Amazon this morning announced plans to acquire iRobot for an all-cash deal valued at $1.7 billion. The home robotics firm, best known for pioneering the robotic vacuum, was founded in 1990 by MIT Arti
Fish and CHIPs
Things were on the quiet side in robotland this week — and honestly, I don’t mind. It can hard to catch your breath covering the industry these days. But even a category as supercharged as rob
Let’s check in with Samsung before next week’s Unpacked event
It has become something of a tradition: Samsung announces an Unpacked and all or most of the big products get teased out in leaks in the weeks leading up to event. Sometimes the leaks come before the