Amazon has developed a new warehouse robot that uses touch to rummage around shelves to find the right product to ship to customers. The robot, called Vulcan, is a meaningful step towards making robots less sausage-fingered compared to human beings. Honing robots’ tactile abilities further may allow them to take …
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It used to be that when BMW would refit a factory to build a new car, the only way the automaker could check if the chassis would fit through the production line was to fly a team out and physically push the body through the process, making note of any …
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Later this year, Boston Dynamics plans to put its all-electric humanoid Atlas robot to work in a Hyundai factory. The new version of the bot, evolved from the hydraulic Atlas model that’s been performing viral video demos since 2013, made its public debut last spring. But while the company’s dog-like …
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While capabilities like dancing can be fun and eyecatching, they don’t actually show how useful humanoid robots are in real-world situations, says Fern. Even being able to run a half marathon isn’t a very useful benchmark for their skills—it’s not like there’s market demand for robots that can compete with …
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