Robotics & Automation News

Where Innovation Meets Imagination

Computing

Endurance Robots launches open source chatbot platform

by

formitchev selfiebot chatbot
George Formitchev, CEO of Endurance Robots, demonstrates the company’s new chatbot platform

Endurance Robots has developed an open source platform to enable developers to build their own chatbots. 

CEO George Formitchev says the system is capable of facilitating the development of something like Jibo, Alexa, or Siri – some of the more well known chatbots on the market.

He adds that the SelfieBot Endurance ChatBot allows you to create your own personal assistant to “answer your emails and to communicate with you and on your behalf”.

Formitchev says the applications of the system could be “to help you learn a foreign language and to be a key addition in your everyday life”.

Endurance has a wide range of robotic solutions, including lasers for industrial applications, and like its chatbot most of it is open source and instructions on how to get started are on the company’s website.

Chatbot market racing towards $1 billion, says report

by

robot assistant
Picture: Matthew Hurst

The market for chatbots is on course to reach $1 billion by 2024, according to a new report by Transparency Market Research. 

Advances in high-end artificial intelligence development is allowing companies to attain a far greater consumer pool than before, says Transparency.

Facebook, Google, and Microsoft were the “clear winners” in the global chabot market in 2015, adds the company.  [Read more…] about Chatbot market racing towards $1 billion, says report

Maxim Integrated launches new PLC development platform

by

Maxim says its new platform transforms traditional manufacturing processes with real-time intelligence, adaptive manufacturing, and distributed control

Maxim Integrated has launched a new Pocket IO programmable logic controller development platform which its says can significantly increase manufacturing productivity.

The company says the platform provides customers with the ability to achieve the smallest form factor and highest power efficiency for next-generation PLC designs.

Lost productivity is a common concern for Industry 4.0 designers challenged with keeping a manufacturing line running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  [Read more…] about Maxim Integrated launches new PLC development platform

DataRobot surpass 110 million predictive models

by

datarobot

DataRobot customers have surpassed 110 million predictive models using enterprise machine learning platform

Machine learning and data science startup, DataRobot, says its customers have developed more than 110 million models using the SaaS version of the DataRobot automated machine learning platform.

The company says it serves as validation of the company’s mission to “bring automated machine learning to every corner of the enterprise” and made the announcement at the Strata + Hadoop World session, Data Science for Executives, delivered by DataRobot CEO and co-founder, Jeremy Achin.

Enterprises across every industry are embracing machine learning to remain competitive in today’s data-driven world. By allowing more professionals across an organization to use advanced algorithms to derive insights from data, machine learning is helping to alleviate issues caused by a critical shortage of data scientists. [Read more…] about DataRobot surpass 110 million predictive models

Beyond Moore’s Law: Human-plus-machine computing

by

d-wave processor

By Adam Devine, vice president of marketing, WorkFusion

How do we move forward in a world where Moore’s Law no longer holds true? For five decades, Gordon Moore’s famous prediction about processing power doubling about every two years held firm.

It was a reliable sort of constant as innovators continued to increase the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits.

But all good things must come to an end, and Moore’s Law has been confounded by another, more immutable law: physics.  [Read more…] about Beyond Moore’s Law: Human-plus-machine computing

Raspberry Pi partners with RS Components to expand manufacturing operations to Japan

by

raspberry pi starter kit

New manufacturing hub in Japan complements UK production operation and expands capacity for famed Raspberry Pi microcomputer

RS Components and the Raspberry Pi Foundation have agreed a deal which will see the latest iteration of the Raspberry Pi 3 credit-card-sized single-board computer being manufactured in Japan under a local contract manufacturing arrangement.

This increase in global production of Raspberry Pi is to serve large and increasing demand for the popular platform in the Asia Pacific region.

William Chong, head of product, supplier, inventory and pricing management, Asia Pacific, RS Components, says: “Existing models of the Raspberry Pi will continue to be manufactured in South Wales, UK, with the dual manufacturing locations in place to cater for future demand growth globally.

“Asia Pacific is a significant growth market for Raspberry Pi, and this new ‘Made in Japan’ element means that we are now geared up for this growth.”  [Read more…] about Raspberry Pi partners with RS Components to expand manufacturing operations to Japan

Opinion: Industry 4.0 is transforming manufacturing – but the cyber threats are increasing

by

cyber-security-2

By Mirko Brandner, technical manager, Arxan Technologies 

If you attended this years’ Hannover Messe, the leading international trade fair for industrial technology, you will have seen fully developed “Industry 4.0” techniques on demonstration. Coined at the Hannover Messe five years ago, Industry 4.0 represents the fourth industrial revelation, driven by data and automation.

This futuristic idea has now become a reality and these new techniques are leading the way to a fully digitised, intelligent manufacturing plant. Mobile ultrasound measuring devices for foresighted machine maintenance, smart liquid analysis, driverless forklifts and even collaborating robots – these were just a few of the new systems and equipment on show.

To remain competitive, companies need to embrace digitisation. The fusion of IT and automated engineering has resulted in intelligent collaboration of all components involved in the production process, this promises an increase in efficiency, flexible resource management and the individualisation of mass production.  [Read more…] about Opinion: Industry 4.0 is transforming manufacturing – but the cyber threats are increasing

Mercedes research boss prioritises artificial intelligence

by

Daimler – the parent company of Mercedes-Benz – is placing artificial intelligence at the centre of its plans going forward, says its head of research, Anke Kleinshmit, at the company’s Future Talk conference

How is artificial intelligence influencing tomorrow’s mobility? How can we use its ideas today? How intelligent will the car of the future be? And above all: what role will people play in this?

These were the central questions discussed by Mercedes-Benz experts at the fourth Future Talk in Berlin in dialogue with scientists, engineers and journalists. In the past few years the Mercedes-Benz Future Talk has dealt with the subjects of utopia, robotics and virtuality. This time, the focus was on the integration of artificial intelligence in the field of mobility and the interaction of humans and machines.

Already in the 1960s researchers expected a major breakthrough in the development and application of artificial intelligence, but the human world still proved too complex for digital computers. However, due to the triumph of the internet, the mass of data that has become available with this and the huge increase in computing power of today’s computers, artificial intelligence is now entering people’s lives and also offers big opportunities and potential for the future of the automobile.  [Read more…] about Mercedes research boss prioritises artificial intelligence

The future of work: Generation Z against the Machine

by

kuka writing robot

Stephen Parker, CEO of digital engagement specialist Parker Software, explains how businesses can use technology to enhance jobs rather than replace them

There is a persistent myth that the rise of automation, robotics and software is a recipe for disaster. Many people worry that technological innovation will lead to the demise of human jobs, otherwise known as structural unemployment.

These claims are dangerous for “generation Z”, creating an uneasy atmosphere of automation anxiety and paranoia over job security.

Many of us have heard about the idea of automation anxiety, which is the fear that robotics and software will one day come to replace humans in the workforce.  [Read more…] about The future of work: Generation Z against the Machine