Robotics roundup
Meet me at the dog run
You’ll have to forgive me, I spent most of the morning thinking and writing about VR. In the lead-up to Apple’s expected headset announcement at WWDC next week, I did a one-person crash course int
Figuring it all out
First and most importantly: I finally hit Delta Silver Medallion for 2024, courtesy of last week’s trip back to the Bay. Like most of you, I came down with a bad case of wanderlust during the lockdo
Keepon, carry on
I’m back in the South Bay this week, banging away at an introduction in the hotel lobby a few minutes before our crew heads to Shoreline for Google I/O. There’s a guy behind in a business suit and
The life and death of a robot vacuum
I’m heading back to the South Bay next week, thanks to Google I/O, which is coming back to the Shoreline Amphitheater. I honestly don’t expect much of anything related to this beat, though AI is g
Flipping is much easier than walking
I wrote about half of last week’s Actuator on Wednesday in an empty office at MassRobotics after meeting with an early-stage startup. I’m not ready to tell you about them just yet, but they’re d
Survey says!
Last fall, Alex and I discussed bringing back the TC+ robotics survey. I gave him the usual caveat: I’m into it, but it will have to wait until I can find the time. You know how these things go —
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
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
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
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 play
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 like clockwork. If you’ve emailed me about work stuf
Consumer Robotics Show
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important robotics stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 11 a.m. PT, subscribe here. Welcome back to Actuator and happy first day of CE
Macro machines
The phrase “mission creep” entered the popular discourse in the early to mid-1990s. It popped up in a number of big papers in articles describing the Somali Civil War. Here’s the New York Times
Scene Report: Boston
What surprised me most on returning to Boston* for the first time since the onset of the pandemic was just how clustered things are. I’m not a great scheduler and I don’t know the city’s geograp
Please don’t tip the robot
Greetings from Cupertino, California, where the temperature has cooled down to a far more reasonable 101 degrees. It’s a nice change from the 109 degrees we hit here on Tuesday. I’m out here this
Don’t sweat the singularity
Monday is Labor Day here in the States. In most households, it’s come to mean one final three-day weekend to mark the end of the summer. It’s a bittersweet feeling that stirs up all sorts of back-
The good, the bad and the Actuator
One of the trickiest parts of this gig is setting realistic expectations. The job of writing about robots for a living is a bit of a balancing act between excited optimism and pragmatic realism. How d
The three true robotic startup outcomes
Allow me to borrow a phrase from baseball for a moment. If you follow the sport, you’re likely aware of the concept of the “three true outcomes.” They are, specifically, a home run, a strikeout,
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
Just like Actuator, only on a Wednesday
Yep, Actuator is coming to you a day early — mostly because it felt a bit weird to drop the robotics newsletter right in the middle of the robotics conference. Good news for everyone who’s sic