Last year, Amazon announced that it would acquire iRobot, the makers of Roomba automated vacuum cleaners, for 1.7 billion. Months later, they agreed to give up on the merger. “We’re disappointed that Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot could not proceed,” said Amazon’s General Counsel. “We’re believers in the future of consumer robotics in the home and… Read more »

Waiting with bated breath for the monumental event to spark the next industrial revolution? Eagerly anticipating the arrival of Industry 4.0? Feel like there’s a lot of buzz around Industry 4.0 without proof of revolutionary change? Revolutions in industry aren’t triggered by a single event. The Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution took place over a… Read more »

FigureAI’s general purpose humanoid robots will be showing up at a BMW plant, possibly the first use of bipedal bots in auto manufacturing. Figure 01, the robot in question, has hands with fingers and is just about the size of a human being. Obviously, it’s quite different from your average auto industry robot. The companies’… Read more »

People have been worrying about being made redundant by robots for some time now, but researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab are offering some cheering information. Is replacing humans cost-effective? The study suggests that just 23% of tasks could be replaced by AI cost-effectively. Previous research has found that about 30% of… Read more »

Keeping up with X? If so, you might have seen a conversation between David Holz of Midjourney and Elon Musk of Tesla. “We should be expecting a billion humanoid robots on earth in the 2040s and a hundred billion (mostly alien) robots throughout the solar system in the 2060s,” Holz suggested. Musk replied, “Probably something… Read more »

It’s a dark and dismal time for manufacturing workers who keep up with their daily news. They sit down at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee and their morning paper – or more likely an aggregated newsfeed – before heading in to the factory for their shift. Between political turmoil and their favorite… Read more »

The Consumer Electronics Show had several robots to show off. There were two humanoid designs, including the Unitree HI. Its claim to fame is that it can recover its balance when kicked. That’s lucky for all the humans cozying up to it in this video: The Kepler Forerunner was present, but wasn’t moving. We have… Read more »

Indramat motion control systems don’t fail very often. There’s no question that reliable and dependable machinery is a good thing, but it does create a problem — most people are at a loss if their Indramat servos start acting up. Avoid these common Indramat repair mistakes and call 479-422-0390 for emergency Indramat support. Assuming the… Read more »

The Department of Labor has issued a final rule on distinguishing between a contractor and an employee. “The misclassification of employees as independent contractors may deny workers minimum wage, overtime pay, and other protections,” they point out. “This final rule will reduce the risk that employees are misclassified as independent contractors while providing a consistent… Read more »

“The best defense is a good offense” — you hear this little paradox used in the context of sports, military, and business, but it also applies to your industrial motion control system. If you want to protect your Indramat system from faults and error codes, you must take actions to minimize the risk of downtime…. Read more »