Brian Heater

Ken Goldberg certainly isn’t the first roboticist I’ve spoken to who’s expressed a kind of pleasant surprise reflecting on generative AI breakthroughs over the last couple of years. Toward the end of our recent podcast interview however, the Berkeley professor turned startup co-founder expresses a much more fundamental shift in his own thinking spurred on by these technologies.

Autonomous mobile robots are one of the fastest-growing segments of the robotics industry. During this live virtual training, you'll be introduced to safety protocols and best practices for working with mobile robots in industrial settings.

Long lauded as a beacon of success in the hardscrabble world of home robotics, iRobot confirmed over the weekend that it has filed for bankruptcy. The process finds a pair of China-based suppliers acquiring the Roomba maker through court supervised Chapter 11 proceedings.

By way of reintroduction, Dexory CEO Andrei Danescu refers to the startup’s primary hardware offering as “the world's tallest autonomous robot.” With a telescoping peak of roughly 14 meters (45 feet), I’m not aware of too many systems that come within swiping distance of that claim. Locus’ recently announced self-replenishing Array system, for instance, taps out at 10 feet.

The dearth of successful food robot startups is not for lack of imagination. I’ve seen dozens come and go in my decade or so of robotics coverage. They’ve made me salads, pizzas, coffee, vegetarian burgers. They’ve arrived in all shapes and sizes, from small arms to fully automated food trucks, with an equally wide spectrum of on-board intelligence solutions to match.

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The last time James Kuffner and I spoke was on the eve of world-transforming change. I interviewed TRI-AD (Toyota Research Institute – Advanced Development)’s then-CEO on March 3, 2020, at a robotics and AI event on the U.C. Berkeley campus. We set up extra Purell stands around the venue, while our corner of the world remained open for the time being.