Late October spelled bad news for Pepper, the quintessential and iconic face of Softbank Robotics. According to a Nikkei Tech survey, only 15% of companies planned to renew their three-year contract with the robot provider that began in October 2015. The contract involved deploying Pepper in corporate settings, including banks and offices, for purposes of…
Personalized deep learning improves robots for autism therapy
Children with autism spectrum conditions often have trouble recognizing the emotional states of people around them – distinguishing a happy face from a fearful face, for instance. To remedy this, some therapists use kid-friendly robots for autism therapy to demonstrate those emotions and to engage the children in imitating the emotions and responding to them…
Softbank Vision Fund to invest $2.25B in GM’s Cruise
The Softbank Vision Fund is investing $2.25 billion in GM Cruise Holdings LLC, which is primarily made up of Cruise Automation, the driverless car developer GM acquired in 2016 for nearly $1 billion. When the deal closes, Softbank Vision Fund, an affiliate of Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp., will own a 19.6 percent stake in GM…
Simbe Robotics and Softbank partner on retail robots
Simbe Robotics, the creator of the Tally shelf-scanning robot, has partnered with Softbank Robotics America to expand deployments of Tally. Softbank will initially help expand Tally in Europe, Japan and North America. If all goes well, it will then help Simbe Robotics commercialize Tally more broadly. Retailers are starting to embrace in-store technology to try to…
Will Softbank’s Pepper Robot Find a Home in China?
Haier, a China-based consumer electronics and home appliances company, has partnered with SoftBank Robotics Group Corp to build a custom version of the Pepper robot for Haier’s Smart Home platform and its retail stores in China. This version of the Pepper robot will be built on Haier’s U+OS operating system. At Haier’s retail stores, Pepper…