Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Perhaps people fear robotics and automation simply because they’re not cuddly enough. It’s certainly an under explored aspect in the growing field of soft robotics. A team Carnegie Mellon is taking on the challenge by creating soft robots with knitting machines.

Cuddliness aside, the real goal here is the design robotic form factors that are lower cost, less dangerous and in some cases event wearable. The team is designing an automated process that adds tendons, which can connected to harder motors, in order to create movement. Examples include, no joke, “stuffed figures that give hugs when poked in the stomach and even a sweater with a sleeve that moves on its own.”

Down the road, the research could lead to more serious soft robotics created with commercial knitting machines designed to produce garments.

“We have so many soft objects in our lives and many of them could be made interactive with this technology,” CMU PhD student Lea Albaugh says in a release tied to the news. “A garment could be part of your personal information system. Your sweater, for example, might tap you on your shoulder to get your attention. The fabric of a chair might serve as a haptic interface. Backpacks might open themselves.”

In a sense, it’s a kind of old school take on 3D printing and other additive manufacturing. Potential materials for tendons include polyester-wrapped quilting thread, pure silk yarn and nylon monofilament. Conductive yarn, meanwhile, could give the robot a much better sense of its own movements.

Developer season has begun! Next week, Google will be putting on a big party at the pointy outdoor amphitheater in Mountain View. It’s shaping up to be a biggie, too, if this week’s Google earnings call was any indication. Sundar Pichai teased out a number of upcoming offerings from the company that we can expect to see on full display at the show.

From the looks of it, there’s going to be a LOT of news coming hot and heavy out of the South Bay, from new Android and Assistant features, to some rare hardware debuts. Here’s a quick rundown of what we’re expecting from the big show.

More Q

Quiche? Quindim? I had to look up the latter — it’s a “popular Brazilian baked dessert, made chiefly from sugar, egg yolks, and ground coconut” according to Wikipedia. Basically Brazilian custard.

We’re probably not getting a name either way at the event, of course. We will, however, get our best look yet and Pie’s successor. As ever, the latest version of Android will take center stage at I/O. With an expected arrival date of this summer, we’ve already seen some key pieces of Android 10 courtesy of a couple of betas.

So far, the keys are improvements to privacy/permissions and multi-tasking through Bubbles. Expect a lot more here. Rumors include pressure sensitive touch features and across the board dark mode.

Unfolding foldables

It’s admittedly been a tough couple of weeks for the ascendent form fact, thanks almost exclusively to malfunctioning Galaxy Fold units. On this week’s call, however, the company reiterated that it’s still bullish on the tech. And it kind of has to be. Google’s devoted a lot of mind share to making Android more foldable friendly, in hopes of jumpstarting a stagnant smartphone industry.

And while the Fold has been put on hiatus, we do expect a release date soon, along with Huawei’s Mate X and upcoming models from Motorola, Xiaomi, TCL and more. Expect to see the form factor positioned as the future of Android interaction.

The budget Pixel

Like other developer-focused shows, I/O isn’t really much of a consumer hardware event. That’s likely to change this year, however. In an earnings call this week, Sundar Pichai all but confirmed the long rumored arrival of the Pixel 3a. Initially floated as the Pixel Lite, the budget take on the company’s flagship is designed to curb stagnate smartphone sales by offering some flagship features at a lower price point.

Rumors so far have the product somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 and include, among other things, the return of the headphone jack — an acknowledgment that bluetooth headphones are still cost prohibitive. Equally interesting, this would make a push to roughly a six month release cycle for Pixel products, assuming the 4 arrives around an October timeframe.

Google’s made it clear that the Pixel line is about more than just showing off the latest version of Android, and a massive investment in HTC’s hardware team that includes a new Taipei campus certainly demonstrate that it’s not screwing around here.

Gaming

Stadia had its moment back at GDC back in March. The company is harnessing its live-streaming technology to finally help gamers realize the promise going hardware agnostic. Stadia was far and away the buzziest announcement out of the gaming show, but Google held back a lot of detail, only to have Apple reveal its own gaming strategy a couple of weeks later.

Pichai talked the service up during Alphabet’s earnings call, seemingly priming the pump for some stage time at I/O next week.

Smart Home

Growing its smartphone business has been a struggle, but Google’s been firing on all cylinders on the home front. Assistant is a stronger offering than Alexa, and hardware like the Home Mini and Hub have been selling briskly. We’ll undoubtedly see a lot more tricks out of Assistant this time around, including a bit focus on AI and Machine Learning smarts.

In addition to a new Pixel, we may also be getting a smart home piece of hardware from Google in the form of the Nest Hub Max. As the name implies, the device is a bigger take on the smart screen — 10 inches, according to rumors — with a focus on serving as a centralized smart home panel. The device will no doubt be primed to work well with other Google Home and Nest offerings, at a higher price point than Hub.

Etc.

Expect more on the ARCore front at the show. The oft-neglected Wear OS, which just got a nice update this week, could get some love as well. Ditto for Android Automotive. ChromeOS, will be getting some face time, as well, though I’d be surprised to see much in the way of hardware from any of the above.

Whatever comes, we’ll be on-site at Mountain View next week, bringing it to you live.

Down in Christchurch, New Zealand a team of roboticists at Invert Robotics has commercialized an inspection robot that uses tiny suction cups on a series of treads and a specialty chemical to create a technology that has robots literally climbing the walls.

Meanwhile, a world away in Pittsburgh, Gecko Robotics, is tackling much the same problem with a high powered magnets and an inspection robot of its own.

Both companies have recently closed on new financing, with Invert raising $8.8 million from investors including Finistere Ventures and Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley, and Gecko Robotics wrapping up a $9 million round which began fundraising last June, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For the food-focused investment fund, Finistere Ventures, the benefit of a wall-climbing robot is apparent in looking at supply chain issues, according to co-founder and partner Arama Kukutai.

“The immediate value of Invert Robotics across the global food supply chain – from ensuring food and beverages are stored and transported in safe, pathogen-free environments, to avoiding catastrophic failures in agrichemical-industry containers and plants – is undeniably impressive,” Kukutai said in a satement. “However, we see the potential applications as almost limitless.”

Plant inspections in the food, chemicals and aviation industry are dangerous endeavors and automation can make a significant improvement in how companies address the critical function of quality assurance, according to investors and entrepreneurs.

“There has been virtually no innovation in industrial services technology for decades,” Founders Fund  partner Trae Stephens told TechCrunch in a statement. “Gecko’s robots massively reduce facility shutdown time while gathering critical performance data and preventing potentially fatal accidents. The demand for what they are building is huge.”

While Gecko uses powerful magnets to secure its robots to surfaces, Invert Robotics uses powerful suction to enable tis robots to climb the walls.

“If you think of a plunger and how a plunger adheres to a surface… it creates a perfect seal with the surface you find it very hard to lift the plunger off the surface,” said managing director, Neil Fletcher. “We’ve taken that concept and we’ve made it able to slide along the surface without losing the vacuum. It’s a fine balance between maintaining the vacuum that we’ve created and leaking enough air into the vacuum to allow the unit to slide along and we coat the suction cups with a special chemical that reduces the friction.”

Both agriculture and chemicals represent billion dollar markets for non-destructive testing, Fletcher said, and the company is already working with companies like Dow Chemical and BASF to assess their processing assets and ensure that they’re fit for use.

Yamaha has a strategic interest in developing these types of robotics systems, which prompted the investment from the firm’s skunkworks and investment shop out of Silicon Valley.

“As part of Yamaha’s long term vision supporting the development of advanced robots to improve workplace efficiency and safety, Invert Robotics’ technology and its value proposition made a positive impression on our investment committee,” added Craig Boshier, partner and general manager for Yamaha Motor Ventures in Australia and New Zealand. “Importantly, the robotic technology’s adaptability to different environments and industries is well supported by an engaged team. That combination, with proper capitalization, positions Invert Robotics for success in its global market expansion.”

Pittsburgh’s own Gecko Robotics has similar aspirations and an investor base including Mark Cuban, Founders Fund, The Westly Group, Justin Kan and Y Combinator.

Since 2012, the company has been working on its technology using ultrasound transducers and a high def camera to scan boiler walls as the company’s robot would scale them.

Given the billions of dollars in demand, and the potential life-saving applications, it’s no wonder investors are clambering to get a piece of the market.

In the latest of a string of products aimed at attracting and engaging a younger demographic, dating app Tinder this morning announced the launch of a new feature called “Festival Mode,” designed to connect singles attending the same music festival. Similar to “Spring Break Mode,” announced this February, “Festival Mode” will also involve the use of badges on user profiles to indicate an upcoming destination.

These badges make it easier to spot, when swiping, those people who are planning to attend the same music festival as you.

Tinder is launching the addition in partnership with two entertainment companies, AEG Worldwide and Live Nation, and will make the feature available to those attending large festivals in the U.S., U.K., and Australia.

This includes the following events: EDC Las Vegas (May 17), Hangout Music Fest (May 17), All Points East (U.K., May 24), Governors Ball (May 31), Parklife (U.K., June 8), Bonnaroo (June 13), Firefly (June 21), British Summer Time (U.K., July 5), Lovebox (U.K., July 12), Faster Horses (July 19), Hard Summer (August 3), and EDC Orlando (November 9).

The company notes the market for music festivals is large, with over 32 million in the U.S. expected to attend at least one. These festivals also put a large number of young single together in one location, which does inspire, um, “new connections.”

Tinder has seen this in its own data first-hand. During Hangout Fest in 2018, app registrations increased by up to 30x. Meanwhile, app activity at Bonnaroo 2018 increased up to 300x, at times.

The launch of Festival Mode speaks to Tinder’s broader strategy.

Following Tinder parent Match’s full acquisition of the relationship-focused dating app Hinge, it no longer sees the need to market Tinder as an app for serious daters looking for a love match. Though that could still happen, of course, the general push for Tinder going forward is to cater to those younger users not ready to settle down, and who instead want to embrace the “single lifestyle.” 

“It’s no secret that Tinder is a must-have app for singles attending music festivals around the world. We consistently see a spike in Tinder use as tens of thousands of music fans come together, so we wanted to create a new experience that makes it easier to connect with other concert-goers before even setting foot on festival grounds,” said Jenny Campbell, CMO of Tinder, in a statement about the launch. “We’ve partnered with some of the biggest names in the entertainment and events industry to make that happen, and we couldn’t be more excited to help Tinder users find their crowd during these events for the rest of 2019.”

Festival Mode launches today and will allow users to add event-specific badges to their profile approximately three weeks before each festival.

It’s not the first feature to cater to younger users in recent months. In addition to Spring Break mode, Tinder has been further developing and expanding its Tinder U product for college students, including with the launch of new features like Rivals Week, and others.

Spotify is increasing its investment in voice technology, as hinted at earlier this week on the company’s earnings call with investors. The streaming service today is announcing the launch of voice-enabled advertisements, which will encourage the listener to say a verbal command in order to take action on the ad’s content. Initially, the audio ads will direct listeners to a sponsored Spotify playlist or a podcast, the company says.

One of the first voice ads being tested starting today comes from Unilever’s Axe and Spotify Studios.This ad will direct users to the Spotify Original podcast, Stay Free: The Story of the Clash. Another will promote a branded playlist on Spotify related to a Unilever Axe ad campaign.

For now, Spotify is only focused on content promotion within its own service — not anything outside of its app.

These voice ads will only be available to a subset of Spotify’s free mobile listeners in the U.S. during the test period, and only to those who have already enabled Spotify’s voice controls. These may have already been turned on, in those cases where the listener uses Spotify’s in-app voice assistant technology to search for music and podcasts.

Users can choose to opt out of voice ads in the Settings menu, if they prefer, under “Voice-Enabled Ads.” (A “Manage Ad Settings” button also displays on the ad while it’s running to make this setting easier to find.) Listeners can also choose to entirely disable the microphone access in the mobile device’s Settings.

When the ad runs, it will encourage users to check out the content by saying “Play Now” and gives the listener time to respond. If the user says anything else except “Play Now,” a tone will sound and the mic is turned off. The ad break then continues as usual.

Spotify believes voice ads will allow it to capitalize on consumers’ growing interest in using voice commands and smart assistants — areas where all the major tech companies are investing with their on-device assistants and smart speakers for the home.

“We believe voice — really across all platforms — are critical areas of growth, particularly for music and audio content,” Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek told investors on Monday. “And we’re investing in it, and we’re testing ways to explore and refine our offering in this arena,” he noted.

In addition, the company believes voice ads can help marketers reach their audience at a time when people are being more conscious about how much time they’re looking at their phone’s screen — and attempting “screen detoxes” where they aren’t picking up their device as often. Before, they may have otherwise seen a visual, could have tapped a link to learn more, or could have searched for the advertiser’s content in some other fashion.

The current test is live in the U.S. only for free users of the Spotify app on iOS or Android. It uses ad technology Spotify built in-house, the company says.

Spotify isn’t the only music streaming service to test voice-enabled ads.

Last month, Pandora confirmed it would also begin testing interactive voice ads later in 2019. In its case, the voice ads will ask listeners if they’d like to hear more about a product or service, and allow time for them to respond “yes” or “no.”

Voice technology is nearly ubiquitous these days — a recent report from Juniper Research said there are now 2.5 billion digital voice assistants in use, and that figure will grow to 8 billion by 2023. However, voice assistants today are doing our bidding by setting alarms and timers, playing music and news, controlling our smart home, or delivering information we request — not trying to push us to do something the company wants us to do. It’s unclear, then, how consumers will respond to voice ads — that is, whether they’ll largely ignore these ads’ demands, hate them enough to disable them, or if they’ll actively engage.

These early tests will help to uncover some of those insights, which could later inform how voice ads should work on other platforms, like our voice-enabled smart speakers.

Mosaic, founded by Blue Apron’s former senior director of operations Matt Davis and Sam McIntire, is entering the next phase of direct-to-consumer meal services with frozen foods.

Phase one of meal kits entailed prepared ingredients (Blue Apron) or pre-made meals that went into the refrigerator (Munchery). Blue Apron has since gone public, albeit experiencing a rocky road on the public market, while Munchery was forced to cease operations.

Launching today in select East Coast cities, Mosaic’s first line of products entails six vegetarian bowls made with fresh ingredients. Mosaic cooks those ingredients via roasting, grilling or sauteing, and then freezes them.

“We decided to do it because there’s so much potential in frozen food that’s untapped,” Davis told TechCrunch. “There’s an opportunity to make amazing frozen foods.”

Davis, who spent almost four years at Blue Apron, said he realized frozen food is a last frontier within the food category.

“Frozen food is an amazing way to work at scale, preserve food and reduce food waste,” Davis said. “What we offer is a cut above anything you see in the aisles today.”

Each bowl comes with packaged sauces and garnishes. They range in price from $8.99 per meal to $12.49 per meal, depending on the size box you get. A four-meal box costs $12.49 per meal while a 12-meal box costs $8.99 per meal. Customers can subscribe for deliveries every one, two, four or eight weeks.

It’s long been known that China is developing a dystopian surveillance system in Xinjiang, the Northwest province that’s home to China’s Uyghur Muslim population. Among the evidence includes poorly managed database and now we have details of a mobile app used by police in the region to track Uyghur citizens.

Human Rights Watch today published a detail report into Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), the system used to the population of Xinjiang. The organization got hold of an IJOP app and reverse engineered it to shed light on the kind of data that is being sucked up about Uyghur people.

The details gathering vary from obvious information like name, height and blood type, to information on whether a person uses a VPN or specific apps — chat services like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram — whether they leave their house via the backdoor, how much electricity they use, and more.

The system pairs data entered by officers on the ground — both roaming and at specific checkpoints — with information pulled by a mesh of surveillance cameras to root out apparent suspicious people. China is reported to have locked up around one million Uyghur in so-called “re-education” camps and this system, and in turn app, play a major role in that selection process.

If there’s any consolation here, it’s that China’s system isn’t particularly cutting-edge or efficient. The app, for example, relies heavily on manual input from officers while alerts to check on ‘suspicious’ individuals requires an office to be dispatched to their home, place of work, etc.

“It’s important to note that this system, though intrusive, is also crude and labor-intensive. I don’t think they are very sophisticated, and they require a huge number of police and resources to operate,” noted Human Rights Watch senior China researcher Maya Wang in the report.

Still, in spite of inefficiencies, the intention of the state is enough to cause havoc. China’s operation in Xinjiang is breaking up families by disappearing people and installing fear in those who remain. More widely, the clampdown has seen Muslim architecture and culture destroyed in what is a devastating and under-reported onslaught again an ethnic group.

Human Rights Watch added his voice, once again, to those calling for international intervention.

“Concerned governments need to think seriously about export controls and targeted sanctions, such as the U.S. Global Magnitsky Act, including visa bans and asset freezes, against senior Chinese officials linked to abuses in Xinjiang. They should set the bar higher on privacy protections so that companies like the one that produced this app don’t succeed in setting the standards,” wrote Wang.

In the two years since GrainChain launched its distributed ledger-based transaction platform for bulk dry goods the company has brokered thousands of contracts on everything from corn, sorghum, wheat, and soybeans to even sand from its headquarters in McAllen, Tex.

Now the company is expanding its services to Mexico, partnering with the government of Tamaulipas, to help farmers and grain elevators with commodity management and settlement.

Integrating with existing grain elevator equipment, GrainChain will deploy its sensors and software to automate the certification of inventory, invoice settlement and reporting to buyers and sellers, according to a statement from the company.

Although the company’s blockchain adoption is new, GrainChain began developing its technology six years ago as an inventory supply chain management toolkit for farmers.

The company’s founder and chief executive Luis Macias had sold his previous software business Verge Data to an insurance company in 2005 and took some time off before wading back into the software development business in McAllen.

In 2012, Macias says he was approached by Hi Star Grain about developing software to manage the sales process for bulk dry goods.

The company spend the next five years working on the technology.

Before a commodity is ever shipped GrainChain sets up a contract between a buyer and a farmer for their supply negotiated through GrainChain’s digital portal. That contract is submitted to the chain along with an agreed upon payment that’s held in escrow until delivery.

In the field and at the silo GrainChain’s system consists of a logistics toolkit to monitor and track harvests coming out fo the fields and through individual silos. The goods are certified for quality assurance using the company’s sensor technology and that certification is recorded onto a HyperLedger-based blockchain.

Once the shipment is verified then payment is released to the farmer in the form of a dollar-backed GrainPay stablecoin that allows instant settlement of the transaction. The asset-backed token is burned once the contract is filled and the tokens are converted into whatever fiat currency was agreed upon in the initial contract.

GrainChain makes its money by charging a commission on every transaction that moves through its platform.

The company raised $2.5 million from Medici Ventures — the investment arm of Overstock — back in October and is now expanding into international markets.

“We’re giving the farmer the ability to work with a higher risk customer because they’re getting guaranteed payment,” says Macias. “Sometimes, they can’t go past the normal broker they go through.”

Currently the company has 14 different commodities including: corn, soybeans, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, sorghum, coffee, cocoa, and sand.

“We have the ability to do any dry commodity that has the ability to be graded,” says Macias. “What we really found is that when there’s a contract that’s built and it’s slow-pay or no-pay or arbitration that comes through on the contract, it’s devastating to the farmer. This gives them the security to take on what would otherwise be riskier customers.”

Toyota AI Ventures, a subsidiary of Toyota Research Institute, has a new $100 million fund that will focus on finding and investing in early-stage robotics and autonomous technology startups.

This second fund, aptly dubbed Fund II, brings the firm’s total assets under management to more than $200 million.

“The growing interest in automated systems has created great opportunities to improve human lives using AI and next-generation mobility technology,” said Dr. Gill Pratt, chief executive officer at TRI and Toyota AI Ventures investment committee member.

Toyota AI Ventures is a newcomer to the scene. Still, it’s managed to invest in 19 startups since launching in 2017, including Nauto, autonomous shuttle company May Mobility, social companion cognitive AI startup Intuition Robotics and Joby Aviation, the electric vertical takeoff and landing passenger aircraft service.

Since its inception, Toyota AI Ventures has targeted early-stage startups and its investments have been directed at companies applying AI, data, and cloud technologies to autonomous mobility and robotics.

That primary aim isn’t changing. However, the firm is also interested in what Jim Adler, managing director of Toyota AI Ventures, described as “unbundling mobility.”

“One of the things that we want to explore with Fund II is the unbundling of mobility,” Adler told TechCrunch. “The personally-owned vehicle has provided tremendous safety, freedom, convenience, and fun. What we’re now seeing is a phase of unbundling such as ride hailing, micromobility, etc. There are investment opportunities where autonomous technologies might accelerate these unbundled mobility products and services.”

Capital has poured into the autonomous vehicle technology industry in recent years. Hundreds of companies, including full-stack AV developers, mapping startups and sensor companies, now exist in an industry that was empty a decade ago.

While a handful of companies appear to control the looming robotaxi business, Adler contends that “profitable business models are still being proven.” He also believes there’s still space in the related sensor industry for startups.

“For the various operating design domains, there’s no clear winning mix of cameras, radar, lidar and ultrasound,” Adler said. “There’s still room to run.”

Tesla is raising up to $1.55 billion through the sale of notes and shares, according to a filing made by the EV maker today.

The document outlines that Tesla will sell up to $1.35 billion in convertible senior notes. The number could increase further: Tesla is giving underwriters the chance to buy a further $202.5 million for over-allotments. In share numbers, that’s an initial 2,723,198 shares that could expand to 3,131,677.

The notes are due in 2024 and, already, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk is committed to buying $10 million in the offering, that’s 41,896 shares.

Tesla’s stock price rose by five percent in pre-market at the time of writing, according to data from Yahoo Finance.

As is often the case in such offerings, the plans for the funds raised are fairly vague at this point.

“We intend to use the net proceeds from this convertible notes offering and our concurrent common stock offering to further strengthen our balance sheet, as well as for general corporate purposes,” it said in the prospectus.

The offer comes a week after Tesla reported a $702 million loss for Q1 2019 which missed analyst forecasts for the business.

The results follow two consecutive quarters of profitability that were fueled by sales of the Model 3. Tesla reported a $139 million profit in the fourth quarter and, in October, it posted its first profit after seven consecutive quarters of losses.

The U.S firm said its cash position decreased by $1.5 billion from the end of 2018 to $2.2 billion mainly due to the repayment of convertible notes, of which $188 million negatively impacted operating cash flow. Tesla paid off its $920 million convertible bond obligation in cash in March.