apptronik

Understanding humanoid robots

Robots made their stage debut the day after New Year’s 1921. More than half-a-century before the world caught its first glimpse of George Lucas’ droids, a small army of silvery humanoids took to t

Mercedes begins piloting Apptronik humanoid robots

Pilot season has officially begun for the world of humanoid robotics. Last year, Amazon began testing Agility’s Digit robots in select fulfillment centers, while this January, Figure announced a dea

General purpose humanoid robots? Bill Gates is a believer

The robotics industry loves a good, healthy debate. Of late, one of the most intense ones centers around humanoid robots. It’s been a big topic for decades, of course, but the recent proliferation o

This is Apptronik’s humanoid robot, Apollo

The rise of humanoid robots didn’t happen overnight, but a kind of perfect storm has accelerated the phenomenon over the past year and change. The foundation, of course, is decades of research. Toil

Motor City mechatronics

A number of native Detroiters have asked me what I think about their city so far. The simple answer is that I don’t feel qualified to offer much insight yet. I’ve been here for roughly three days

Apptronik readies its humanoid robot for a summer unveil

Jeff Cardenas pulls out his MacBook. Apptronik’s co-founder and CEO has a slideshow he wants to show, running down the Austin startup’s seven-year history. It does, indeed, take a bit of contextua

Are general-purpose robots impossible? Apptronik says no, pockets fresh NASA partnership

Robotics has made great strides in even just the last five years. But despite major advances in core technology such as sensing and computing, many of the robots populating industries like manufacturi