Robot news

Rethink Robotics, the Boston, Mass.-based maker of collaborative robots Baxter and Sawyer, shut its doors today. Rethink was founded in 2008 and raised nearly $150 million to date, according to Crunchbase. Its last round of funding was an $18 million Series E in August 2017. Rethink Robotics CEO Scott Eckert first confirmed the news via email to The Robot Report. “I can confirm that unfortunately the news is true, Rethink Robotics closed its doors today,” Eckert writes. “We were pioneers and innovators in the industry and responsible for the creation of the collaborative robot category, but unfortunately we didn’t quite achieve the market success we had intended. We have been helping our team find new homes and have been overwhelmed with interest. It’s a world-class group of people will continue to do great things in their next endeavors.”

Delft students have won an international prize in Germany. Their designed exoskeleton was the fastest in the obstacle race. Participants with spinal cord injuries had to take four different obstacles with the help of such a skeleton. Mobility An exoskeleton is a robot suit for people with spinal cord injury. With this orthosis people who are paralysed can still walk and take obstacles. Shaan Quirijns wore the exoskeleton during the competition. She has had a spinal cord injury since 2000. "We are very proud of this first place. But, even more importantly, we think that with the development of this technique we contribute to giving back mobility to people with spinal cord injury," says student Lennart Schut.

Researchers from Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Hanze University Groningen, Viaa University of Applied Sciences and NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands have looked at the effect of social robots. The research shows that Tessa can be of significance for people with dementia living at home. Tessa can offer and activate a person with dementia structure, because she gives a reminder for appointments and daily activities. She does this by saying a message that has been entered beforehand by the caregiver. For example: "It is three o'clock. Good afternoon Mrs. Nijboer, would you like a cup of tea? In addition, Tessa can become a real 'buddy' for the person with dementia, if only because her voice breaks through the silence in the house. Moreover, she can play music.

In the Henna café in Tokyo you can now order coffee from a robot. Through a dashboard you can indicate what kind of coffee you want and if you like a biscuit with it. Sawyer scans the receipt that comes out of it and immediately starts working for you. With the precision as we are used to from Sawyer, he fills the filter, lets the water run through it and quietly puts the fresh cup of coffee on the bar. The biscuit is served by the robot arm next to it, after which he can start with the next order.

The World Economic Forum predicts, based on interviews with directors of member firms, that by 2025, 52 percent of all work will be in the hands of programmable machines. At present, about 29 percent of all work is done by robots. At the same time, it is possible that the rapid developments in the ICT field will create some 133 million new jobs in 2022. These will replace 75 million jobs that will disappear. The WEF advises governments to anticipate this forecast now and to retrain employees in the risk sectors early.