Brian Heater
Hardware Editor
The Latest from Brian Heater
Quell’s gamified home fitness tech drums up $10M
Home fitness had a huge moment at the outset of the pandemic — and understandably so. People were stuck at home, gyms closed and suddenly workout options seemed to dramatically decrease. As with
Toyota Research Institute SVP on the difficulty of building the perfect home robot
Earlier this week, the Toyota Research Institute opened the doors of its Bay Area offices to members of the media for the first time. It was a day full of demos, ranging from driving simulators and dr
Toyota Research Institute’s robots leave home
“I think I’m probably just as guilty as everybody else,” Toyota Research Institute’s (TRI) senior vice president of robotics, Max Bajracharya, admits. “It’s like, now our GPUs are
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 “Aut
Swallowing this pill-shaped sensor could help you avoid invasive procedures
Ingestible robotics has been a fascinating and growing field for the last several years. We’ve already seen a handful of startups working to commercialize a technology that could allow for internal
Bigscreen’s new VR headset goes small
I’m not sure how high up size is on the VR scene’s current list of complaints. Truth is, there are still a lot of things standing between the technology and mainstream acceptance. Still, massive,
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review
Samsung is the best at big. Big, brash, bold, kitchen sink phones. The company that mainstreamed the phablet a dozen years ago has never given up on big dreams about big phones. Last year, the company
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 tende
Giannis, Doja Cat and Amy Schumer will peddle Google’s Pixel during the Super Bowl
Super Bowl ads make strange bedfellows. Half a week out from The Big Game™, Google just dropped their spot. This time out, the company’s Pixel 7 is in the spotlight — specifically the smartphone
OnePlus teases tablet, mechanical keyboard
This morning, OnePlus made a pair of big announcements: the OnePlus 11 smartphone and the Buds Pro 2. All in all, a good morning for the Oppo-owned phone maker after months of teasing the products. Bu
The $699 OnePlus 11 arrives Feb 16
There’s a lot to be said for consistency in this world. There’s also a lot to be said for realistic expectations. OnePlus should be applauded for both. While it’s true the company has had variou
FRIDA’s robot arm attempts to bring DALL-E-style AI art to real-world canvases
One could make a very reasonable argument that FRIDA (Framework and Robotics Initiative for Developing Arts) is as much a thought experiment as it is a research project. Certainly it butts up against
Modular eel robots combine soft and rigid components
Here’s an interesting comment from MIT’s Alfonso Parra Rubio, “Treating soft versus hard robotics is a false dichotomy.” For, I suppose, obvious reasons, thinking around technology tends to be
Is your startup heading to MWC? TechCrunch wants to hear from you
Nature is healing, the tech show is returning to in-person events. I’m not sure I’m entirely over CES less than a month after returning from Vegas, but we’re already in full planning mode for Te
Nothing’s second phone will take on the US this year
It there’s one thing Nothing’s first phone excelled at, it was bringing a bit of excitement to the staid world of smartphones. Shipments have been stagnating, slowing and contracting for the past
Apple stock drops on rare earnings miss
Apple has been lauded for a deliberate hiring approach that saved the company from the mass layoffs conducted by top competitors like Alphabet and Amazon. But not even the iPhone maker is immune from
Rebar robotics firm Toggle adds another $3M to its fundraising tally
There’s no denying that the robotics startup world has taken a hit during the ongoing economic downturn. Recent numbers prove what we’ve all suspected for some time. But two things are true: 1) Th
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 State University’s College of Engineering — not all of it good. The broader economic slowdown has been d
Apple’s hardware VP on the HomePod’s return
Maybe nothing ever truly dies in Apple land. The Mac Pro went on an indefinite hiatus as the hardware design team regrouped and reengineered. MagSafe appeared to be gone forever, only to be reborn in
Samsung’s new Galaxy S23 Ultra arrives with a 200-megapixel camera
Common wisdom in digital photography says that megapixels aren’t everything. They matter to an extent, but smartphone makers have a long history of leaning too heavily on those numbers as a kind of