EP.15 A ROBOT THAT CAN UNDERSTAND HUMAN LANGUAGE

A robot eel, a drone that swims and flies, Google DeepMind focuses on robotics, a new humanoid robot & much more...

A robot eel in an underwater world 🐠

Eelume is creating autonomous, self-propelled vehicles that are perfect for inspecting, maintaining, and repairing subsea structures like pipelines, offshore wind farms, and O&G (Oil&Gas) production facilities.

Eelume is made to live underwater connected to a docking station on the seafloor where they can be mobilized round-the-clock in any weather. The investment grants an equity share in the company along with Kongsberg Maritime and the inventors, whose technology was developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

The use of surface vessels can be reduced, resulting in greener, safer, and more cost-effective subsea operations for Equinor. Autonomous robots can also play a significant role in radically altering how Equinor operates its subsea equipment.

"Equinor Ventures makes investments in technologies that can enhance business processes and be incorporated into Equinor's operations. Startups have the opportunity to test their technology with a picky client, which will hasten the advancement of the technology. The deployment of Eelume at the Sgard field will allow for further implementation throughout Equinor's operations, says Gareth Burns, head of EV.

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A drone that flies and swims 🏊🏼‍♂️

A special drone called Mirs-X has been created by researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This drone can do three cool things: fly in the sky, dive underwater, and swim like a fish.

It uses four spinning blades to do these tricks. It weighs about as much as a small cat and can stay in the air for 6 minutes or swim underwater for 40 minutes. What's even cooler is that the TJ-FlyingFish doesn't need a human to control it. It's smart enough to do things on its own. It can stay in the air for about 6 minutes before needing a recharge, and it can explore underwater for up to 40 minutes. It's not too heavy either, weighing only 1.63 kilograms. Imagine using it to explore underwater areas that are hard for people to reach – like checking out sea life or searching for lost things underwater.

Creators plan to develop larger versions of the device which could be used for search and rescue or carrying out engineering inspections where it can observe from high altitudes before descending into the water for a closer look. You can see it in action at a conference in London, where its creators will share their research. It's a fantastic example of how technology can help us explore places we couldn't go before.

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Meme of the week 🤖

When will the monopoly on producing male versions of robots end? Who knows.

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The new model translates vision and language into robot actions 🤖

Meet the Robotic Transformer 2 (RT-2), a new kind of smart robot that learns from the internet and real-life robot experiences. Imagine a robot that can understand what it sees and follows your instructions, like "Pick up the bag about to fall off the table" or "Move the banana to the sum of two plus one."

This robot is like a superhero, trained with big web data and hands-on robot training. It uses special computer programs that work with pictures from cameras and words from people. When it looks at a scene, it knows what's happening and can do things like picking up objects or moving them around.

The RT-2 robot is trained to understand both pictures and words. It can do things it hasn't seen before, like moving things it doesn't know. In tests, it did great, even in new places with new things. This is a big step towards making robots really smart, so they can help us in lots of different ways.

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A new humanoid joins the race! 🔥

Unitree, a famous robotics company known for its four-legged robots, has exciting news! They're working on a new kind of robot called the H1 humanoid. This robot is similar to a human and is about as tall as a person, standing at 71 inches (1800mm) and weighing 100 pounds (47kg). It has strong motors and special parts inside its body, and it can move its legs and arms just like we do.

The robot has cool sensors, like a 3D LiDAR and a depth camera, that help it see the world around it. While the pictures of the robot show it without hands, the company is working on adding hands to it soon.

Even though they didn't say when exactly, they mentioned that the robot will be ready to buy in the next 3 to 10 years. They think the price will be under $90,000, which is pretty good for a robot like this.

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🚨 BREAKING NEWS

Last mile delivery solution - Serve Robotics - got $30 million dollars funding! 🚚

Serve Robotics, a leader in self-driving sidewalk deliveries, has secured $30 million in funding, totaling over $56 million raised. It merged with Patricia Acquisition Corp., forming Serve Robotics, and welcomed Uber's Sarfraz Maredia to its board. Existing investors like Uber and NVIDIA led the funding, aiding the expansion of Serve's AI-driven platform to new U.S. markets.

The funds will also aid in growing their robotic fleet, meeting growing demand, and fulfilling a 2,000-robot agreement with Uber Eats. The move to become a public company enhances access to capital for continued partnership growth and innovation, bringing sustainable, autonomous delivery closer to doorsteps.

Source: The Robot Report - https://www.therobotreport.com/serve-robotics-brings-in-30m-lands-spac-deal/