In Body Rituals of the Nacirema, anthropologist Horace Miner describes a North American group of people with some strange rituals. One involves a “holy mouth man” who uses a variety of augers, awls, and prods as objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth. It’s a process that involves almost unbelievable ritual torture […]
Birds of a feather flock together. First, we had all the electric vehicle stocks back their assets up into a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in reverse merger arrangements that sent shares soaring before deals even closed. Now, it appears that LiDAR companies are following suit. Since there is strong interest from our readers on […]
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. It’s some quality nerd humor that […]
What a difference a year makes. In 2019, drone startups raised a record $1.2 billion in funding, according to Drone Industry Insights. It’s a different story in 2020: Through mid-August, only about $240 million in disclosed capital has flowed into private companies, based on public data. It seems the investment side of the industry has […]
In the U.S. alone, 453,200 construction equipment operators plied their trade in 2018, many of whom used earth moving machines to move dirt around for various reasons. While operating an earthmover may sound like fun to an 8-year-old, the job itself mostly fits the three d’s – dull, dirty, and dangerous. Many road construction projects […]
In our brave new world of contactless contact, automation is accelerating, whether it’s robots sanitizing hospital rooms or AI managing queues at retail operations. The trend is even spurring drone delivery by air and by ground-based robotic vehicles for last-mile deliveries. The eccentric billionaire that everyone loves to hate and short sell, Elon Musk, claims […]
Earlier this year, we wrote about the increasingly important role of healthcare robotics in smart hospital settings to help cut down on infections, as well as other nasty viruses and bacteria. Service robots can help deliver medications or sanitize hospital rooms, with the goal to reduce contact between human petri dishes in critical care conditions […]
About four years ago, we first discussed a technology called LiDAR, and in that piece we talked about a startup called Velodyne whose LiDAR products were being used in 25 different self-driving car programs at the time. Today, Velodyne has emerged as a leader in the LiDAR space having advanced surprisingly far in just under […]
“Why software is eating the world” was the title of a famed blog post published in 2011 by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen which addressed concerns in the investment community of another tech bubble. He argued that “new software ideas will result in the rise of new Silicon Valley-style start-ups that invade existing industries with impunity.” […]
It’s been nearly a decade since venture capital firm Founders Fund published its manifesto complaining about the slowing rate of innovation, encapsulated by the tagline: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” (The line has been attributed to the firm’s founder and co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, though the essay itself was penned […]