Traditional industrial robots do one job really well but with little or no flexibility to do anything else – sort of like game show hosts. The name of the game today is automation, and the combination of technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, sensors, and the Internet of Things, among others, is accelerating […]
“Do you love me?” the robots seemed to ask, as they danced to the tune with the same name. The most common question asked by those who saw that video was whether or not it was real. It was, and if you have a humanoid robot that can maintain its balance enough to do backflips, […]
We’re still a long way from the robot revolution and subsequent technological singularity promised by futurologists, science fiction writers, and overcaffeinated dorm-room philosophers. That said, robotic technology has come a long way since Honda’s (HMC) advanced humanoid robot, ASIMO, embarrassingly fell down the stairs back in 2006. We humans are so confident in our ability […]
Why is it that when a stock rises +300%, nobody bats an eye, but when it falls -10%, everyone panics and starts asking questions? That’s partly due to a psychological phenomenon known as “loss aversion” which shows people feel the pain of a loss about twice as hard as the joy of a gain. That’s […]
We recently wrote about the nascent and unprofitable carbon capture market – and suddenly it seemed like everyone was talking about how we need new, scalable technologies for removing and recycling CO2 into everything from energy to cement. It didn’t hurt that Mr. Elon Musk happened to announce the same day that he was putting […]
Every so often, social media throws us a bone. To welcome in the New Year, Boston Dynamics decided to make their robots dance. And dance they did. Even His Holiness Elon Musk took a break from his 17-hour workday to share this amazing piece of video with social media. One commentator on Twitter rightly wondered […]
In the age of Instagram influencers, authenticity has been increasing in value as an asset. Authenticity is about saying what you think and then seeing who happens to be attracted to it. In the finance world, that hasn’t traditionally been the norm. You’re always putting on dog-and-pony shows that attract new clients while convincing existing […]
We recently introduced our lovely readers to the concept of telexistence – the merger of virtual reality and robotics – in which a human plugs into the Matrix to operate a remote humanoid-like machine. At the moment, it’s more of a parlor trick, but practical applications are literally out of this world, with one use […]
Sometimes it takes a while before a technology goes mainstream. One prerequisite is a name that conveys what the technology does while sounding good on a boardroom whiteboard. For example, the word “telexistence” seems to describe being able to exist in a particular place remotely. It’s an idea we wrote about four years ago in […]
While memes were created for people who can’t properly articulate their thoughts on paper, there are some funny ones floating around. One such meme shows a confused humanoid robot in Terminator (played by Ahhnold) looking at a phone book page which shows Sarah Conner’s name written as a captcha. Credit: Know Your Meme It’s some […]