Brian Heater
A year or two before launching Actuator, someone on staff floated the idea of my writing a weekly robotics newsletter. I balked at the suggestion. Surely, I suggested, we would be struggling to fill the pages by week two. It’s not so much that I doubted whether there...
There’s a long-standing debate in the world of logistics robotics. On one side stand the greenfield folk, who insist that the best possible experience is one built from the ground up, with these automated systems at its core. Brownfield proponents, on the other hand, point to the time...
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Apple is building a mixed reality headset that’s set to ship this year. The company’s MR (AR+VR) hardware ranks among its longest-lasting rumor cycles. Some (Apple Watch) have borne fruit. Others (that pesky Apple TV set) not so much.
The category...
Forgive the scattered nature of this week’s Actuator. No big, overarching monologs this week — just a handful of things I’ve been thinking about lately that I’d like to get down on paper. I suppose that’s one of the perks of doing a weekly newsletter— it forces you...
Another industrial automation firm is bucking VC slowdown, as Plus One Robotics this morning announces a $50 million raise. The Series C brings the San Antonio-based firm’s total funding up to $94 million to date (including a $33 million Series B back in 2021). Scale Venture Partners led...
The slowdown was inevitable, of course. Nothing stays hot forever — especially in this industry. By tech standards, smartphones have had a good run, but the last few years have seen device makers searching for the magic bullet to help the sales slide reverse course. The arrival of...
I want to talk about weird tech for a minute. A lot of strange and wonderful pieces of technology have come across our desks over the years. More often that not, they’re the purview of the startup. Small companies are more nimble and willing to take risks. That’s...
I’ve yet to walk the entire floor at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year (that’s the goal for this afternoon), but my sense is the majority of the robots present fit into one of two categories: robot vacuums or greeter robots. With Pepper out of commission, maybe...
Android was, predictably, everywhere at Mobile World Congress. At a show where Apple has no public-facing presence, Google’s mobile operating system is almost entirely ubiquitous. As in past years, the company also set up a sprawling outdoor booth between halls. This time, the focus was on interoperability and...
The OnePlus that was founded in 2013 was a cautious company, deliberate in its release schedule. The Shenzhen-based firm would announce one to two phones a year, not hung up on being the first to market with new features. It was a cadence that allowed the company to...
