If all Boston Dynamics did was make Youtube videos, they'd have a pretty good business.
An electric new era for Atlas
11–20 of 443 posts
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#12Seems like they just posted a video about the new Atlas https://youtu.be/29ECwExc-_M
Wow, the ways All New Atlas can move in are really something else. Really channels that Star Wars battle droid vibes.
I actually find it less creepy than the original atlas for some reason ha. It looks like there is a chance this one will be able to unpack the dishwasher, until it decides it doesn't want that job anymore :)
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#13What's the best way/resource to get an honest/pragmatic view of where things stand with the "robots market" in general and how much and fast things are really progressing? I remember seeing prototypes from Toshiba when I was 10 (20 years ago), and every few months, there is a company releasing an "amazing video." its mother company then spins it off like there's no adequate progress, and so on.
Talk to people in the area, I guess we do miss honest and straight forward source of info for the general public.
In general robotics flies under the radar because it's rare to see a unicorn or anything really flashy and there is a big gap between big aspirations and fake demos and real world applications with polished use cases and diligent design, processes, etc.
source: I'm a skeptic roboticist working in the industry.
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, the ways All New Atlas can move in are really something else. Really channels that Star Wars battle droid vibes.
I actually find it less creepy than the original atlas for some reason ha. It looks like there is a chance this one will be able to unpack the dishwasher, until it decides it doesn't want that job anymore :)
The original was at the edge of the uncanney valley in the way it moved. This one seems a lot less human-like in its movement so doesn't conjure up those feelings for me.
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#15What's the best way/resource to get an honest/pragmatic view of where things stand with the "robots market" in general and how much and fast things are really progressing? I remember seeing prototypes from Toshiba when I was 10 (20 years ago), and every few months, there is a company releasing an "amazing video." its mother company then spins it off like there's no adequate progress, and so on.
Talk to people in the area, I guess we do miss honest and straight forward source of info for the general public. In general robotics flies under the radar because it's rare to see a unicorn or anything really flashy and there is a big gap between big aspirations and fake demos and real world applications with polished use cases and diligent design, processes, etc. source: I'm a skeptic roboticist working in the indu…
I have zero ties to the industry.
Am I right to assume there's a lot of DoD-driven echo chamber? Material being produced for the big clients and contracts ?
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#16Figure, a new startup, is working on a similar humanoid robot. They just raised $675 million from Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Microsoft [1]. Not sure about their chances of succeeding. On the other hand, as a non-American, I admire that the USA is seemingly the only place where people get funding for wonky ideas that sometimes become very successful. 1- https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/29/robot-startup-figure-valued-...
imho, Nobody does capitalism better than the Americans the South Koreans, and the Japanese(I guess because of the lack of natural resource in their geographies for KR/JP?). I've been privileged enough to build in those countries for an extended period of time, and work with builders in many other countries. I strongly believe nobody bruit forces ideas into existence better than them, they make the resources happen in the right way. Even if you're not much into capitalism, how deeply it's been embraced by the culture still fascinating, especially as a Canadian where I believe we do capitalism particularly poorly.
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#17If all Boston Dynamics did was make Youtube videos, they'd have a pretty good business.
Do they list Sora as a potential competitor?
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#18What's the best way/resource to get an honest/pragmatic view of where things stand with the "robots market" in general and how much and fast things are really progressing? I remember seeing prototypes from Toshiba when I was 10 (20 years ago), and every few months, there is a company releasing an "amazing video." its mother company then spins it off like there's no adequate progress, and so on.
I'd say Tesla is the leader or could quickly become the leader given their intense investment in FSD. If a car software can "understand the physical world" using vision Ai / neural nets, it shouldn't be out of the question to reoptimize that software for the rest of the "physical world". Especially when you need a whole lot less safety standards compared to a 3,000lb 70MPH vehicle. Hell, the Optimus engineers said they were considering doing the first demo on a road since the software was so similar lol.
With FSD 12.3.3 released, it's clear FSD is getting smarter and smarter. How many of those releases left until people trust Optimus to fold their laundry? 1.0 Optimius will still be pretty dumb, but could still be worth the price (especially with continuous software upgrades!)
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#19What's the best way/resource to get an honest/pragmatic view of where things stand with the "robots market" in general and how much and fast things are really progressing? I remember seeing prototypes from Toshiba when I was 10 (20 years ago), and every few months, there is a company releasing an "amazing video." its mother company then spins it off like there's no adequate progress, and so on.
The best resource I have found for “news” has been Andra Keay’s newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/comm/newsletters/710308591124398489...
In it she covers the latest and greatest robot news, with occasional commentary/perspectives.
However to more directly answer your question, you need to know/talk to someone in the industry at the moment. I am not aware of a single “spot” that gives an honest in depth appraisal of where we are.
From my experience there is a ton of new “hardware” coming out, not just in the humanoid space (Agility Robotics being imho the most “real”), but also in lower cost robot arms, end effectors, sensors, and compute.
Where things are harder to track is where we really are in the software realm. If you look at software driving this hardware, most of it is early stages. Perhaps TRL level 3 to 5 at best. The higher TRL is non-intelligent control software (that is based on decades of work). The newer, AI/Machine Learning/“Smart” software tends to only have limited roll out. At best it will be a startup at the relatively early stages, but more often then not it is still a researcher sitting at a University or a large corporations research lab. In either of those cases, you will see single to at most double digit examples of those systems actually doing work.
However, to your point, it is super easy to create a single (or even a series) of cool videos… it just takes one success in 100s of takes. It is harder to make something that will perform day in and day out and really change the industry/world.
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Talk to people in the area, I guess we do miss honest and straight forward source of info for the general public. In general robotics flies under the radar because it's rare to see a unicorn or anything really flashy and there is a big gap between big aspirations and fake demos and real world applications with polished use cases and diligent design, processes, etc. source: I'm a skeptic roboticist working in the indu…
I have zero ties to the industry. Am I right to assume there's a lot of DoD-driven echo chamber? Material being produced for the big clients and contracts ?
I'm not based in the US to give you an accurate picture on this scene, most of it happens behind the curtains.
What I can say it's there has been always a movement to weaponize robotics in some way and this has gained interest from the market in the past few years specially with the Ukrainian and Palestinian wars. It takes time and a lot of money to polish an application like this, if there isn't a behemoth funding research and PD on this it will take a long time before it takes off, and I hope it never does.