The Robot Report

Rethink Robotics, the Boston, Mass.-based maker of collaborative robots Baxter and Sawyer, shut down on October 3. The Robot Report first reported the story, confirming the news with former Rethink CEO Scott Eckert. Founded in 2008 by former iRobot co-founder Rodney Brooks and Ann Whitaker, Rethink raised $149.5 million in funding, with its last round,…

The sun may be setting on what David Letterman would call “Stupid Robot Tricks,” as intelligent machines are beginning to surpass humans in a wide variety of manual and intellectual pursuits. In March 2016, Google’s DeepMind software program AlphaGo defeated the reining Go champion, Lee Sedol. Go, a Chinese game that originated more than 3,000…

South African agtech company Aerobotics has closed a $2 million Series A. The data analytics company uses drones and machine learning algorithms to help farmers identify pest and disease early. After receiving $602,000 in seed funding last August, Aerobotics has added new investors to continue its growth. Leading the pack is the VC branch of one of…

Data is the key to developing reliable self-driving cars. But it’s about having the right data, not necessarily the most data. And nuTonomy, a Boston-based self-driving vehicle company recently purchased by Delphi for $450 million, believes it has the right data to allow researchers across the world to develop safe autonomous vehicles. nuTonomy released a self-driving dataset called…

Here are my top 5 robotics development tips that will help you build a robotic solution, whether you’re a novice getting into robotics or an experienced roboticist building the next big thing. First, make sure your robot is needed When it comes to building any robot, first and foremost, do your research. Make sure customers want…