This Is Robotics: Radio News – Details, episodes & analysis

Hello folks and welcome to This Is Robotics. I’m your host and fellow companion, Tom Green.

The last half of 2024 is upon us, robotics-driven automation is in rapid ascendancy once again, especially now since 2024 is showing how robotics engages with GenAI, and how prompt engineering is significantly increasing the ease of adoption for robots everywhere. 

Last month, we gave you a longish one-hour show, which was necessary for it was meant to support my keynote address at SuperTechFT in San Francisco.  

If you have yet to listen to it, it’s Episode # 31 and deals with how quickly computer code has capitulated to prompt engineering…and why. Plus, the new breed of workers on the rise who are being hailed as the “New Collar” generation of workers.

This month, we are listening to our global fans for feedback. We have a global fan base in 68 countries according to Buzzsprout stats. 

A fangirl Celina from the Philippines wants us to reprise a woman’s show. Specifically, the rise of Alice Zhang (Verge Genomics) and her pursuit of answers to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS. Thank you, Celina for also pointing out how this story highlights how human insight creates the technical challenge and how LLMs are then employed to reveal a way forward for bio research. For Alice, it was robotics and LLMs cracking the code for ALS.

During Alice’s piece, she laments how broken bio research is and why. Which leads to our second fan request from Martin in Augsburg, Germany, who was fascinated with robotics in bio labs working with AI in what he calls Pharma 4.0. 

New drug research and discovery companies with strange, new names like Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Arctoris, Insitro, Relay Therapeutics, and Insilico Medicine are forging the way. Martin, good pick.

We lead off this month humankinds almost innate fascination and attraction to humanoid robots. Why is that? We let a half dozen experts offer up some truly interesting insights and theories on just why that is. Those insights are wrapped up in a show about human attraction to robots where we commemorate National Kiss & Make up Day which is coming up in August.

Okay, strap on your earphones or pop in your earbuds, which Buzzsprout tells us 3,000 people do daily worldwide to listen to This Is Robotics. We’re thrilled you can join us today. Thanks and welcome.

https://asianroboticsreview.com/home591-html

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2024: The Most Important Year in the History of Robotics!

Companion podcast #31 to Keynote address at SuperTechFT 3 July 2024

 Happy to be with you one and all. I’m Tom Green, your host and companion on this very special journey for 2024. We are only halfway through the year, and already 2024 has shown us that it is the most important year in the history of robotics.

This podcast will show you why that is.

This podcast is a companion to the live keynote address I will give at SuperTechFT in San Francisco on July 3rd 2024. I want to first thank Dr. Albert Hu, president and director of education at SuperTechFT, and to the staff and patrons of SuperTechFT for inviting me. 

The title of my keynote: 2024: The Most Important Year in the History of Robotics!

What other year can possibly compete for top honors other than 2024?

2024 eliminated the barrier to entry for digital programming by eliminating the need to code.

As Tesla's former chief of AI, Andrej Karpathy put it: "Welcome to the hottest new programming language...English"

2024 opened the door of AI prompt engineering to millions of new jobs and careers in millions of SME industries worldwide.

So explains: Andrew Ng, investor and former head of Google Brain and Baidu.

2024 converged GenAI with robotics, broadened robot/cobot applications, and freed robots from complexity of operation.

So announced NVIDIA’s CEO and founder Jensen Huang at the company’s March meeting.

2024 reinvigorated the liberal arts, creative thinking, expository writing, and language as vital new components in developing robotics applications.

So reflects Stephen Wolfram physicist and creator of Mathematica

2024 defined the need for the GenAI & the "New Collar" Worker Connection: Vitally needed workers for AI/robot-driven industry worldwide, and just maybe, the revitalization of America’s middle class…or the middle class of any nation.

Sarah Boisvert technologist, factory owner and wrote the book on the New Collar Workforce

Suddenly in mid-2024, technology has thrown us into a brand-new world

And it’s only early July of 2024...can you believe it?

“Artificial intelligence and robotics could catapult both fields to new heights.”

The 4-Year Plight: SMEs in Search of Robots!

Tech News May Fade, but Its Stories Are Forever! 

GenAI & "New Collar" Connection

Did AI Just Free Humanity from Code?

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This summer of 2023 is one to particularly remember for robotics. We’ll remember 2023 for a long time, even as it spawns two more equally amazing and remarkable years to come 2024 and 2025. Robotics technology and sales will thunder into the quarter-century mark of this millennium’s first 100 years. 

 Today’s podcast looks at three bellwether happenings for robotics here in 2023…and the carryover for them through 2025.

Of course, leader of the bellwether gang is generative AI or genAI that bull-rushed the world this spring sowing fear, chaos, glee, elation…and even adulation as it blindly fast changed most everything around us…and continues to do so. 

Then there was the rise of general-purpose robots and cobots. Oh my, these smart robots and cobots change everything and are the future of everything. Like Google and DeepMind’s RoboCat. 

 We’ll take a look at the RoboCat effect on robotics going forward. Plus, from a real-world look at smart robots in action, we’ll look at Lockheed’s use of smart robots. See how and why Lockheed got a 10x productivity bump. Are these smart critters the future? You bet.

Then another amazing happening in robotics: two countries, not just one, making a bid for greatness. In March there was Korea and its $177 billion dollar move into leadership in East Asia with all things AI and robotics. 

We profiled Korea in a multi-series article set in March and then featured Korea in the March edition of the This Is Robotics podcast.

Next up, is our second pick for greatness. India. India’s time has come. Not only for robotics and automation but as a country that has enabled the extraordinary ascent of India’s indigenous robotics technology. The intertwined future of India’s economics and its robotics technology.

As economist Tyler Cowen put it: “With Rishi Sunak as prime minister of the U.K., it is now impossible to deny what has been evident for some while: Indian talent is revolutionizing the Western world far more than had been expected 10 or 15 years ago.” 

 And finally, from Gutenberg to GenAI. Why is it that humans will always reign supreme? I found out at 39,000 feet over the Pacific on my way to Asia… in the pages of a book from 2014 by Steven Johnson called How We Got to Now. Mother Nature did things to us in both brain and body that make us supreme. Sorry AI.

 Article Set for Rise of Indian Robotics

Is Addverb Technologies the Big Bang of Indian Robotics?

Indian Robotics: Sometimes the Future Is Now

Can India Build a Homegrown, Indigenous Robot Industry to Rival China’s?

Top 10 Best Homegrown, Industrial Robot Builders in India

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Welcome everyone to This Is Robotics, Episode #12.  I’m Tom Green your host and fellow traveler in the wonderful world of robotics.

This is our first podcast while the world is hip deep in generativeAI. In fact, much of our show today is about AI and robotics.

 We lead off with our partnership blog What’s New in Robotics? with Robotiq, the automation company that helps you elevate your workforce with easy-to-use cobot solutions that do the work for you.

Two of our blog posts from What’s New in Robotics? talk about an “inflexion point” arriving in 2023 heralding exponential advances in AUTONOMY and ADAPTIVITY. Both advances are arriving simultaneously with gererativeAI, which should make for an interesting year.

Following that one of our main AI articles this episode: Does AI Need a Body?

GenerativeAI, say the experts, is limited while AI is disembodied, but give it a body… and whamo! With a body, AI explore the world on its own. Because of that, look for bi-pedal humanoid robots in 2023 to get a lot of attention from AI.

Casey Neistat had AI write a vlog script on places of interest in Manhattan. Casey shot the script, edited it, and then presented it on his YouTube channel. 

Here’s Casey’s take on AI as a scriptwriter:

Even Casey thinks something major is missing. Could it be a body?

Then we present a segment on cobots. Yes, cobots again! A segment we call Cobots Sing the Blues. What is going on with cobot sales? The cobot is one of the greatest advances in robotics, yet for nearly a decade now, it’s sales have been flaccid: less than 5% of total robot sales…and seemingly going nowhere fast. 

Our big question is are cobots chasing the wrong customer? We say, yes, and have for some time now. 

I personally love Elite cobots, which I think are the best out there; and I love what igus has done with the REbel for $7500. But there’s something missing, and we contend that it’s the right fit with the right customer. 

Our concluding section offers up and in-depth analysis of the cobot and how to fix sales: we call the segment: The Trouble with Cobots!

EXTRA: Download PDF version: The Trouble with Cobots

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Hi folks, and welcome once again to This Is Robotics: Radio News, Episode #20

 For two years running now, we are the #1 Robotics News Podcast worldwide…and you my dear folks put us at #1. Thank you very much.

 Thanks for joining us today

 We’d really be remiss here at This Is Robotics if we didn’t put some sense into the biggest robotics story of the last several months. That story is of humanoid robots, bi-pedal humanoid robots hooking up with AI.

Our next story is called Humanoid Robots and AI Cross the Rubicon…together. The point of no return!

Where once people were frightened of humanoid robots taking jobs and more, they now seem to be frozen in fear over generative AI.

And with humanoid robots and AI converging, the spectre of a twin fear of humanoids high on AI running amok is scaring more than a few.

Let’s make some sense of what is really going on in this fast-paced world where the benefits from the convergence far outweigh the negatives.

Here also are two new articles courtesy of What’s New in Robotics, from our blog partnership with Robotiq, leader in automating work with easy-to-use cobot solutions.

The first one we call: Robots, Needles & Babies, which is about robotics disrupting infertility and in-vitro fertilization or artificial insemination, referred to as IVF.

Our second article from What’s New in Robotics  we titled: Robot Lost & Found, which is the first-ever development of a robot designed to find lost items for dementia patients.

Our next story asks the question: Is India next up for an automation makeover? It appears so, and Indian robotics is rolling out to the launchpad to drive it all.

The Wall Street Journal, the International Federation of Robotics, and the International Monetary Fund are out with glowing reports on India’s upcoming successes. 

The timing couldn’t be better.

See our companion articles in Asian Robotics Review:

Indian Robotics: Sometimes the Future Is Now

Asia-Pacific 70% of Global Growth 2023

Finally, in an interview with Simon Winchester, the historian looks at the precision engineering styles of Henry Ford and Henry Royce as he celebrates the unsung breed of engineers who through the ages have designed ever more creative and intricate machines. 

He takes us on a journey through the evolution of “precision,” which in his view is the major driver of what we experience as modern life.

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Hi folks, and welcome once again to This Is Robotics: Radio News, Episode #19

For two years running now, we are the #1 Robotics News Podcast worldwide…and you my dear folks put us at #1. Thank you very much.

Thanks for joining us today

Topping the news of the month is Walmart with its blockbuster 5-year plan filled to the brim with automation and robots.  A story we call: Walmart Goes All-In for Robots.

In short, it’s a massive upside for the entire robotics industry.

That’s sure to prompt other retailers to follow suit. Some already have and are ahead of Walmart. Even Walmart’s suppliers are sure to speed things up as well. Got to get those gazillions of cans of Campbell’s soup shipped to Walmart’s 4700 stores either fast or faster.

Walmart vendors winning out: Symbotic, GreyOrange & Alert Innovation. 

Check out the Robotiq blog for the full story

Then we’re off to a factory automation story circa 1803, the world’s very first automated factory, from which the reverberations, here 200 years later, still ring out loudly. The noted historian Simon Winchester wrote about it, and he’ll narrate what happened. 

The Future of Warehouse Work: Technological Change in the U.S. Logistics Industry.

As he does, think about robot-driven automation in today’s warehouses and factories. There’s a lot of relevance for where today’s automation is headed.

Following Simon and the world’s first automated factory from 1803, is our piece on Australian robotics. 

Once high-flying, Australian robotics went into an eclipse after the 2014 budget cuts. Listen to the sadly haunting news clip from 2014 that recounts the tragedy. And now the country wants a return to its former glory. Here, a decade on, is that possible? 

Know this, the world needs Australian robotics and Australian innovation. It’s a tragedy that the government let it wither. Can Australia now make a comeback? 

Is Australian Robotics Making a Comeback?

Heartfelt Thanks for Making This Is Robotics the #1 Global Robotics News Podcast

Hi everyone and welcome, I’m Tom Green, your host for this episode of  This Is Robotics, and your fellow companion on one of the most incredible journeys in human history: robotics.

Thanks so much for tuning us in today.
 
 March 20th, at 5:24 p.m. EDT) spring rolled in. It’s that time of year when the ground begins to thaw, birds return, and many vendors introduce their outdoor robots. Outdoors meaning robots for backyards, construction sites, farms, and major infrastructure projects most everywhere. In short, it’s springtime for robots.

In honor of March, we’ll review some of these new spring robots for 2023. Renovate Robotics, Swap Robotics, Built Robotics, and GlüxKind.
 
 Then, we’re off to Korea as Korea makes its $177 billion move at becoming a robotics kingpin: trying to be the third or fourth-largest producer of robots worldwide, as well as making a strong move on leadership in artificial intelligence. Big things are happening in Korea, and robotics will be a direct beneficiary of Korea’s remarkable plan for AI leadership, not only in East Asia and Asia…but the entire globe.
 
 Articles in Asian Robotics Review:
Major Growth Spurt Ahead for Korean Robotics
 2023-2026 Korea could leapfrog competition through integration of robotics, AI/ML, and ICT

Korea’s Plan for AI/ML Dominance...Brilliant!
 Korea looks to ramp up artificial intelligence and converge with recent successes in robotics (6x growth from 2009 to 2016). Can Korea pull it off?

Our last two segments for this episode ask the question: What happened?
 Generative AI: Finally, America Gets a Real Wake-up Call

In 1983, the United States had 50-plus manufacturers of industrial robots. Today there are zero…as in none! Well, excepting for the recent one ABB in 2015 (Swiss/Swedish conglomerate) built in Michigan. Americans are left to "assembling" other peoples’ robots. Even though the U.S invented robots. 
 
 What if there's a supply-chain fiasco preventing shipments? Or worse, what if embargos from  US alliances make it impossible to import from Germany, Japan, Italy or China.? What has that mean’t for manufacturing in the U.S. today? Will America’s logistics go the same way as industrial robots.

Between 2000 and 2010, the US lost one-third of its manufacturing jobs. The US remains the second-largest manufacturing country in the world, but its global dominance has been well and truly lost.

What happened? And is this decline a harbinger of what Generative AI might do in the very near future? We’ll let you know what the leadership of DHL, a company that ships 5 billion packages annually, says about the situation.

Finally, our last news report: Machine Tool Kingpins: Germany, Japan & China Machine tools keys to the future of global manufacturing. See also Asian Robotics Review news report and free downloadable PDF from Bismarck Analysis on machine tools.
 
 The Importance of Machine Tools
To Have and Have Not: Advanced Manufacturing's Most Important Skill

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FABULOUS FEBRUARY

Hi everyone and welcome to This Is Robotics for February. 

It’s been a mere two months into 2023 and already big things, major innovations, are happening in robotics.

And some of them are quite fabulous and are the harbinger of follow-on innovations that are even more fabulous.

Because of what’s popped to the surface these last  2 months, we’re going into full-stop mode for This Is Robotics for February Episode 17. We’re calling it Fabulous February.

Because, If this is what the first two months of 2023 are like for robotics, the remaining 10 months may well be the best in years.

We’ll take a look at Service robotics, logistics, then cobots x3 with one of them being  the arrival of the ultimate, affordable, and simple-to-use cobot for SMEs at $9k.

I’ve been writing about cobots for ten years, and this is the first to come along that’s tailor-made for SMEs and its not from an old-line robot maker or a new-line cobot maker; it’s from a 50-year-old, German company that makes high-performance plastics. The company is named igus, and the cobot is called the ReBel. And it could easily revolutionize the use of cobots for SMEs.

 How about a personal robot as family historian?

All the elements to build one exist, there needs only a company smart enough to take it on. Perfect for ancestry.com.

Instead of a family scrap book or memory sticks of media loaded with a family’s life events and special occasions, what about an undying, self-repairing home robot as family historian that records and stores everything.  

A family robot that would record (audio and video) of the good, bad, and ugly of a family all year long, and then with the help of generative AI, organize it all into an annual movie co-narrated by Orson Wells and Lauren Becall (both deceased but with AI anything is possible)? Narrator choice is up to you.

It's the ultimate hand-me-down, like the grandfather clock of robots.

OKAY, LET’S GET ON WITH Fabulous February. 

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CHINA TO AMP UP ROBOT USAGE 2023-2025
Already the world’s largest buyer of industrial robots for 9 straight years. A country that buys on average 21,000 industrial robots a month!

Does that sound like a country that needs to “Amp Up” its robot usage?

Yes, and there’s good reason for it.

China’s got a failing grade for its “Made in China 2025” plan in which it promised 50% of all industrial robots bought would be homemade by Chinese robot makers. Today, that’s at 39%!  

More worrisome still, China registered more deaths than births last year, marking 2022 as the first time the country’s population has dropped since the 1960s. Fewer workers mean a need for more automation; robots primary substitute.

China’s new plan for 2023: “Robot + Application Action Plan”

INTERVIEW PT. 1: MARK MESSINA CEO ADDVERB: FIRST YEAR IN NA & MICROLOGISTICS 

That’s followed by the Top 5 Robotics Tech Trends for 2023. It’s our What’s New in Robotics? column from our partnering with Robotiq. The experts have made their forecasts, and we’ve got the Top 5. They’re awesome picks

WHAT’S NEW IN ROBOTICS? AFTERMATH OF CES2023 GOOD FOR ROBOTICS?
CES for 2023 came and went quietly this year (January 5 to 8, Las Vegas), minus much of the online-hoopla that for weeks preceding its opening usually attends the world’s largest consumer electronics show.

Attendees looking for robots at CES2023 also got a quiet show. 

Post-COVID (since 2021), CES simply has yet to fully recover and return to its heady times of years past. A half-day’s rambling about would have been enough to see all the robots at CES2023 that really mattered.

As Brian Heater of TechCrunch remarked: “At some point when we weren’t looking, CES became a car show.”

Isn’t it time we asked ourselves: “Should Robotics Events Have an Exclusive Online TV Network?”

There’s the Travel Channel, the Cooking Network, HGTV, Court TV, the Golf Channel, and myriad others. Why not a 24x7 Robotics TV Network?

See also Robotiq’s blog: See also: What’s New in Robotics? 13.01.2023

INTERVIEW PT#2: MARK MESSINA CEO ADDVERB: 5G & CYBERSECURITY FOR LOGISTICS 

Mark’s insights and outlook for how logistics will deal with 5G and Cybersecurity in 2023. Mark offers up a fascinating insider’s look at 5G and protecting logistics assets from his twin viewpoints as both a logistics engineer and an executive business leader delivering intra-logistics automation for Addverb Technologies.

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CHINA’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE & BEST GIFT EVER!
How China went from 88% of its people in utter poverty, making $2.06 per day, to having the largest middle class in human history. Larger than the entire population of Europe. And it’s all due to one man: Deng Xiaoping, the diminutive (5’2”) paramount leader of the People's Republic of China, who in 1978, at the age of 74, changed China forever. Keeping the sheen on Deng Xiaoping’s "Big Idea"
 China’s Christmas Miracle

TOP 5 ROBOTICS TECH TRENDS FOR 2023
That’s followed by the Top 5 Robotics Tech Trends for 2023. It’s our What’s New in Robotics? column from our partnering with Robotiq. The experts have made their forecasts, and we’ve got the Top 5. They’re awesome picks

What’s New in Robotics? Robotiq Blog 30.12.2022

KRISPY KREME GOES BIG TIME FOR ROBOTS
With cobots elbowing themselves into the food business like with White Castle burgers and Chipotle’s Chippy, the tortilla-chip-making cobot, both from Miso Robotics, what about confections and the sweet-tooth crowd? Are robots in their future, too?  Well, yes… Krispy Kreme, the 85-year-old, NC-based donut giant. is going robot.

SPACE JUNK & ROBOTS
We’ll visit with Space Junk in Low-Earth Orbit. Whether it’s mom’s dinner table or outer space, we haven’t learned to clean up after ourselves. Meet the robots that want to take on the chore.

Space Robots to Sweep Up Orbiting Debris

CAPSULE ROBOTICS
Instrument-free, noninvasive diagnosis and therapy inside the digestive tract will be performed through a new branch of robotics: capsule robotics.

Capsule Robotics: In the Future, All Surgery “Non-Invasive”

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