Robotics

Today Qualcomm revealed the "world's first 5G and AI-enabled robotics platform" in the Qualcomm Robotics RB5 platform. Qualcomm is basically the biggest brand in the tech industry when it comes to processing chips for smartphones, especially when it comes to Android devices. The Qualcomm Robotics RB5 platform utilizes a variety of brand collaborations between Qualcomm and some of the biggest "ecosystem players" in robotics.

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Boston Dynamics' robot dog, Spot, has been put up for sale to businesses, offering a four-legged - and somewhat creepy - way to integrate a robot into the workforce. The news expands on Boston Dynamics' early-adopter program launched last September, and marked Spot's move from development platform into regular production. Around 150 of the robots were deployed as part of the program.

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For some kids, there's not thing cooler than seeing robots and machines moving on their own. Actually, some might find it even cooler to be the ones to build those robots and tell them what do. LEGO's MINDSTORMS theme was born out of that idea, helping fuel the STEM eductional thrust. After almost a decade in hiatus, LEGO is back with another set that taps into one of the current trends in technology, robots with personalities.

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Harvard researchers have created a microrobot they call HAMR-JR that's able to run, jump, carry heavy payloads, and is highly maneuverable. It's a half-scale version of another robot developed at Harvard that was inspired by a cockroach called HAMR. HAMR-JR is about the size of a penny and can perform most of the feats its larger predecessor was capable of, which makes it one of the most dexterous microrobots built to date.

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Coffee is the beverage of choice for millions of people who need a boost of energy for work or increased focused for exams. The beans are found in a variety of products, including one unexpected machine: a robot. Coffee grounds, it turns out, can help a certain kind of multi-legged robot perform its job with fewer issues, but not for the reasons you think.

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Another study has found that artificial intelligence is able to beat humans -- this time it involves judging selfies to determine the subject's personality traits. The machine was best able to identify one particular trait, at least compared to humans, but it was ultimately able to determine five different personality qualities based on nothing more than a picture of a face.

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New research out of Hong Kong brings humanity one step closer to the existence of cyborgs. The study, which was published in the prestigious journal Nature, details the creation of a biomimetic eye prototype that features a hemispherical retina made from a high-density nanowires array that is the machine equivalent of the photoreceptors found in the human eye. The prototype could pay the way for 'super vision' in robots and maybe, eventually, in humans, as well.

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Sphero, the company best known for its BB-8 toy robot, has announced the successful spin-off of its Company Six into a startup that will make robots for the government, military use, and more. Company Six will operate as an independent company, according to Sphero, which says that it will also work on artificial intelligence-based software designed for customers 'who work in dangerous situations.'

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Boston Dynamics' more portable version of its BigDog robot is getting around, figuratively and literally. At a time when social distancing and working remotely has become more than just a luxury, Spot's mobility and general-purpose design could be the key to keeping the world turning even with no humans in plain sight. That's the future that New Zealand robotics company Rocos is preparing for, with Spot doing the tedious and often dangerous work that farmers and herders might not be able to do for a while.

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Many people might not understand the fuss over a new rover that lands and rolls over the moon, Mars, or even an asteroid. After all, isn't it just a crude looking car that happens to have gone outer space? It's easy to take for granted that these aren't remote-controlled vehicles but are pretty much the self-driving cars that we can only dream of here on Earth. These rovers have to navigate literally alien terrain mostly on their own and, as this Mini Rover prototype demonstrates, needs to avoid sand traps without much human assistance.

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Sony and remotely-controlled robot startup Avatarin are teaming up to make telepresence avatars smarter, borrowing tech from Aibo and more. It's the latest move by the freshly-founded Sony AI, the Japanese firm's incubator for next-gen robotics, artificial intelligence, sensor technology, and more, that was set up back in April.

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Scientists have created what they call the fastest soft robots ever, inspired by the biomechanics of cheetahs. The soft robot is capable of moving more quickly on solid surfaces or in the water than previous generations. The new soft robots are also capable of grabbing objects delicately or with sufficient strength to lift heavy objects.

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