This year's theme is one close to my heart: "Robotics Driving Social Change."

We begin in India, where three startups—Genrobotics, Solinas Integrity, and Sakar Robotics—are using robots to end manual scavenging, one of the world's most dangerous jobs, giving 58,000 workers dignity and safety. Then we travel to Tokyo, where Silicon Valley legend Andy Rubin launches Genki Robotics, betting he can revive Japan's humanoid robotics industry. 

Next, we explore Pittsburgh's remarkable transformation from dying Steel City to global robotics hub, anchored by Carnegie Mellon's pioneering research. 

Finally, we examine Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms that lifted 300 million Chinese from poverty and positioned China as an automation superpower.

Read the full articles at Asian Robotics Review:

1. "Fatbergs", Excreta & Pipe-Cleaning Robots - 
2. Andy Rubin's Bold Bet on Japan's Humanoid Future - 
3. The Fall & Rise of Pittsburgh: From Dying Steel Town to Global Robotics Hub 
4. The Rise of Deng Xiaoping: China's Christmas Miracle & Best Gift Ever! - 

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Yes, it’s Halloween, when people dress up like someone or something else, and when the dead come back to visit the living. Which, in a way is kind of apropos of today’s podcast.

ABB Sells to SoftBank

The recent sale of ABB’s robotics division to Japan’s SoftBank. Was that a normal sale of one company to another, or was it something else? Was it part of a disguise? Was it part of an elaborate plan for Japan’s moribund AI and smart robotics industry to return to the world of the living? Was the sale a disguise to get Japan back into competition with its neighbors China and Korea. 

In an age of conspiracy theories, maybe this is one of them. Strange that it all happened in October, and much of it very close to Halloween.

The Real Internet Origin Story 1966

As a program bonus, we look back at the Internet before the Internet as we know it, 1966. When two engineers pioneering the Internet resolved to democratize the technology for the rest of us. 

LINKS FOR FURTHER READING

ABB Bails on Robotics

SoftBank, Robotics/AI & Takaichi Converge

How the Internet Came to Be
The Untold Story of Everything Digital

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In this episode, we explore the thrilling fusion of robots and Generative AI—and where better to witness this convergence than inside the high-stakes world of pharmaceutical R&D labs?

First up: GenAI is already transforming the search for life-saving treatments—and today, we're going deep. How exactly are robots and AI teaming up to crack the toughest codes in drug discovery? You'll hear directly from the pioneers making it happen.

One such visionary is Alice Zhang, founder and CEO of Verge Genomics. Her mission? Nothing short of revolutionizing neuroscience research for the world’s most intractable diseases—Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Alice believes the current system is broken—and she’s raised $134 million to fix it. We catch up with her at Stanford, where she shares her bold new model for medical breakthroughs.

Then, we dive into the world of Pharma 4.0—where robots, GenAI, and brilliant human minds unite in a powerful alliance. What was once science fiction is now reality: rapid, intelligent drug discovery with astonishing success rates. You'll hear from the front-line researchers turning dreams into data—and data into cures.

Ever wonder how robots and AI actually work together in a lab setting to make these miracles happen? So do many of our listeners. That’s why we traveled to Liverpool, UK, to meet Andy Cooper, who’s redefining lab automation and will show you exactly how it's done.

And finally: Why make industrial robots smart? The answer could save your business millions. In fact, a staggering 82% of companies have suffered at least two major production line outages in just the last three years. With average downtime now costing $260,000 an hour, it’s a crisis that’s too expensive to ignore. Smart robots may just be the fix the industry desperately needs.

So buckle up—we’re about to take you inside the labs, the minds, and the machines shaping the future of health, science, and intelligent automation.

Let’s get into the news…

See also:
 Why Make Industrial Robots Smart?
https://asianroboticsreview.com/home399-html 

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We get lots of fan interest in our online news platform and podcast. To recognize and honor all that attention, June’s podcast is dedicated to replying to some of the email and queries that our fans sent to Asian Robotics Review, This Is Robotics, Robo AI News, and LinkedIn.

First off, thank you one and all for your interest in what we do. You are important to us, and we honor the time you take out of your busy day to send us what’s on your mind.

Here are three of the most frequent:

AI’s Red Queen Moment replies to the many who are worried to their cores over artificial intelligence, especially GenAI, and how it seems to be taking over everything everywhere, including the jobs of many or the imminent replacement to many careers and livelihoods. Email arrived in response to our article: A Primer to Combat GenAI Anxiety: We’re All in This Together.

Helping us out in this podcast is Nate Jones, a well-known AI guru, expert, educator, and AI podcast host.

Next up: Prompt vs Context Engineering. Are we abandoning the recently anointed code killer in prompt engineering for newcomer context engineering?. No, we are not. Rather, we are witnessing an evolution in using LLMs. Robotics is getting more with Context Engineering. Once again, we lean on the able services of Nate Jones. Physical AI: Robots Turn Data into Physical Action.

Followed by: Factories: Dark or AI? Unravel the confusion around “dark” factories and AI factories, smart factories, and Factory 4.0. What’s what? And is an AI factory really a factory that makes things? Did AI Just Free Humanity from Code?

 June’s podcast concludes with Meet Mark: New Age of AMR Sales! Go inside the changing landscape of AMR and AGV sales with the newly-appointed CEO of the Americas for ANSCER Robotics, Mark Messina: No-Nonsense Workhorses for the Americas

This Is Robotics

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DON’T MISS THIS PODCAST!

The one podcast that will catch you up, inform you, and get you ready for the future of manufacturing, jobs and careers, robotics, artificial intelligence, and Gen Z, the generation that is the most aware, well-adapted, and emotionally ready to create an out-sized impact on the future.

Any new technology that happens along that ends up amplifying industrial robotics is a benefit to the entire industry, every other industry, and its people. 

When it comes to robotics and its impact on our world and all of our futures, especially for the industrialized nations of the world, five critical issues seem to predominate and are currently settling in across America…and creating a lot of sparks as they do. 

Five issues that might well define our success or failure in automating our world. Each is moving into prominence, and each forms a news topic for this Episode #38 of This Is Robotics.

Here's how we at This Is Robotics see overarching themes or topics affecting the future:

1. Manufacturing vs. Big Trouble 

No country is ever successful in the long term without a really strong and vibrant manufacturing base. Why is America’s in decline? 

Why did America give up on these: Telegraph, telephone, TV, transistor, digital computer, robot, home refrigerator, air conditioning, kitchen stove, microwave oven, and even the ubiquitous pop-up toaster, the list goes on and on, ingenious and life-changing products, all, once upon a time, imprinted with Made in America, but “no longer” and haven’t been for decades. Trillions of dollars in annual GDP America gave away for a song, never to return.

 2. Layoffs vs. Jobs 

The most unnerving two words for nearly everyone on the planet

3. The Three Amigos of Artificial Intelligence: GenAI vs. Physical AI vs. Agentic AI 

4. Humanoids vs. Industrial Robots      

Don’t get overly bedazzled with humanoids just yet. And don’t overlook industrial robots. Remember the frenzy and billions spent on self-driving cars (still no Level 5) beginning in 2011?
 
  5. Gen Z vs. No One  

Gen Z, all 72 million of them, born between 1997 and 2012 are inheriting the nation…and already looking and acting like beneficial stewards of the nation’s future. 

Our age is at a fascinating juncture for these five overarching themes for 2025. 

Please join us to see how each fit into our robotic future. 

Welcome to This Is Robotics. “You’re Going to Love What You Hear!”

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

Today, BTW, is National Superheroes Day. Good time to give thanks of appreciation to a superhero in your life, comic book, cinema, TV, or real life, who has been important to you.

For April’s edition of This Is Robotics, we’ll look at the high-tech drama from Korea as it unfolds a nationwide plan for robot-driven automation for the entire country. Only the second industrialized nation to devise and execute such a massive plan; China, and it’s Made in China 2025, was the first.

We’ll also introduce you to our newest program sponsor, ANSCER Robotics, the small company with a big idea, and its plans following its arrival in the Americas in March for ProMat 2025 in Chicago.

We’ll also attend a white house ceremony for the Executive Order creating the country’s action plan for its very-first upskilling, training, and plans for one million apprenticeships, which could lead to a nationwide new age GI Bill for every citizen, something we’ve been writing about since 2015.

We’ll then take a look through the eyes of Ken Maken, CEO of Workr Labs with his article titled “Why Physical AI Is the Missing Link in Manufacturing Robotics.”

And then we’ll follow up with Yann LeCun’s ideas on physical AI, and why he thinks that today’s LLMs are trapped by Internet data, and offer far less of a future for all robots, including humanoid robots.

 K-Humanoid: Sink or Swim for Korean Robotics?

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Here at This Is Robotics, we have our very own March Madness championship series with teams vying for the GenAI Trophy. The brackets of contenders are set: ChatGPT, Claude, Llama, Gemini, Alibaba’s Qwen, Tencent’s T1, and of course the Cinderella team of the playoffs, DeepSeek, which has already crashed Wall Street for a trillion dollars. 

Our lead story for March is one that generated a ton of email both pro and con plus a pile of commentary.  It was a special report just last week in Asian Robotics Review called The Rise of China's Robotics Industry: Modernize or Perish!

It got a ton of reaction. Some bad, but most was overwhelmingly good. Even former naysayers were impressed saying things like “don’t like the form of government, but got to hand it to them: they are hard workers who came up with a great plan. 

We’ve been following this story for seven years. See the link in our show notes for How China Became a Robotics Powerhouse 2015-2025.

In fact, this month we are juxtaposing China’s rise in industrial robotics with America allowing 50 domestic industrial robot builders go bust. One of them, a wonderful Cincinnati Milacron vowed to become the world’s biggest and best. Our government watched them all die off one by one. America can’t ever let that happen again. The very last of the 50 was Adept Technologies, remember them? They hung on the longest but finally Adept Technologies was acquired by Omron in 2015.

That juxtaposition about the rise of one and the fall of the other is our final story for March. 

OUR FEATURE STORY: 

The Rise of China's Robotics Industry: Modernize or Perish!

Unlike most developed nations trying to automate themselves, China set out a bold plan (emphasis on “plan”), which it has stuck to for a decade of ever-rising success

How China Became a Robotics Powerhouse 2015-2025.

Busy hands

Every nation knows that big undertakings take big money that’s only available from big government, especially a nation the size of China.

 Although many industrialized nations have paid lip service to the critical importance of robot-driven automation, few have actually committed to it and taken action, and none have achieved success anywhere the equal of China’s.

 In addition to China, only two other of the world’s industrialized nations have developed distinct plans to automate their respective countries using robots and robotics technology.  Korea’s 4th Intelligent Robot Basic Plan (2024-2028) is up and running successfully and growing; Japan’s New Robot Strategy, announced in 2015 (running 2016-2020), is mostly a paper plan with limited national success to show for itself.

 China is no stranger to massive undertakings. It’s been regularly pulling off mind-boggling projects since the Yellow Emperor…millennia ago. In modern times, beginning in 1979, the rapid transformation of Shenzhen from a small fishing village to a global tech hub kicked off  a mega building spree. The Three Gorges Dam is another, along with the largest high-speed train system in the world, the Kela Power Station is yet another, then there’s the  South-North Water Transfer Project, plus ten thousand other engineering projects since the 1980s.

Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping felt confident that as long as the Chinese people kept their hands busy and continued to work together on large development projects China would be just fine. He seems to have been correct.

Automating China may be the most ambitious undertaking yet. And it all begins with and depends on robots. In a 2014 speech, Xi Jinping called for a ‘r

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The Wild, Wild World of Humanoid Robots 2025
The Rise of Humanoid Robots in 2021: How We Got to Now

Good fortune has befallen humanoid robotics in this fast-paced year for humanoids 2025.

Join us for the journey to Now! That journey arguably can be said to have begun in August of 2021 with the emergence of high-octane influencer, Elon Musk, and his introduction of Optimus to the heralded list of humanoid names.  

Surely, humanity has been at the chase for a humanoid likeness for centuries. Modernists may insist that WABOT-1, built in 1970 by Ichiro Kato at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, was the first humanoid robot. And they’d be correct. Since WABOT-1, the list of humanoids has been chock-full of exemplary technology and technologists. Not to diminish the robust efforts of any precursors, but all of it seemed to be progressing in slow motion and a bit of anonymity until the world’s richest man, with a half-dozen spectacular moonshots under his belt, suddenly jumped into humanoid prominence.

ChatGP-3 in 2022 breathed a new kind of life into humanoids as code capitulated to GenAI prompts. NVIDIA’s Jetson Thor in 2024, dubbed the “Universal Robotics Computer” offered up a humanoid compute force never seen prior to Thor. And then China’s DeepSeek created a platform for embodied AI that was a simple, cheap, and effective doorway for  humanoids to enter and learn from the physical world of humans.

Episode #35 of This Is Robotics takes a look at this wild, wild journey for humanoids that’s just beginning.

Please join us in this journey together as Elon Musk, Tom Dohmke, Jensen Huang, Peter Diamandis, Emad Mostaque, Yann LeCun, and Eric Jang build out the 2025 landscape of humanoid robotics.

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Yes, there Was Only One.

And no, it wasn’t bipedal humanoids. Not by a long shot. Not as long as there’s gravity and Mother Nature to contend with.

The hype and investment millions going into bipedal humanoid robots these days feels a lot like the over-hyped, over-heated, craziness of the multi-billion-dollar market that was self-driving cars back in 2009-2017. Remember?

Google invested $1.1 billion, so say recent Waymo court documents. Yikes!

The single, most important news story for 2024 is now changing our lives and futures.

Please join us. 30 December 2024 for that news story’s reveal.

“You’re Going to Love What You Hear!

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Pittsburgh: From Dying Steel Town to Global Robotics Hub by Henry Lenard

IS THIS THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMRS?
Unless you’ve been under a rock somewhere, you’ve undoubtedly heard the noise of their wheels and the rush of their whizzing by you, either on TV news, YouTube, or better, in person. What you’re seeing and hearing is the future arriving in a hurry. They’re called AMRs, robotics newest celebrities, autonomous mobile robots.

GLOBAL ROBOTICS PATENTS: THE PATENT WARS!
Patent activity is a useful indicator of technological progress and innovation in robotics. “Between 2005 and 2019, 72,618 robotics patents were granted worldwide.” Who is leading, who is on the rise, and who are the also-rans? 

In other words, the patent wars! Who’s winning? Let’s take a look.

THREE BREAKTHROUGHS: CAPSULE ROBOTICS, THE ALL-ROBOT AUTO PLANT, AND THE DEXTEROUS, FIVE-FINGERED COBOT HAND
Instrument-free, noninvasive diagnosis and therapy inside the digestive tract will be performed through a new branch of robotics: capsule robotics.

In Japan, it seems that only “smart” robots need apply for work at Nissan’s brand new “intelligent” auto plant.

What’s the next big breakthrough tech for the cobot. How about a dexterous, sophisticated five-fingered hand?

Our Annual Tribute to Pittsburgh and Its People
Heartwarming & Inspirational Holiday Story
The Fall & Rise of Pittsburgh
From Dying Steel Town to Global Robotics Hub

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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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 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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They avoid large factories and mega warehouses where for every robot deployed three jobs go missing. Besides, those gigs are way up there on the blue-collar drudgery meter. They also shun white-collar offices that track keystrokes, screen email, and surveil worker productivity.

Around them, the world is just beginning to make room for their kind and see value in their non-traditional worldview. Colleges have dropped the SAT. Law schools jettisoned the LSAT. And now employers large and small are dropping the college degree requirement on resumes. A move that seems reasonable since 66% of the country’s population is without a college degree.

See related: States Are Leading the Effort to Remove Degree Requirements from Government Jobs.

As the NYT blared in a headline, which must have put a smile on the faces of all these new-breed contrarians: “Emerging fields like AI, EVs, and robotics feel like a new age in jobs is beginning to settle in, jobs that require advanced skills but not necessarily advanced degrees.”

READ MORE>>

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What exactly just took place, and why?

Suddenly this March, we all woke up one morning to find code fighting for its life. Why so fast? Why so suddenly? Why so completely? Unexpectedly and quietly code is disappearing. Why is that? Is AI’s argument that convincing? Sure seems that way. It was a little like the Berlin Wall: imposingly there for a few decades, then suddenly gone and forgotten.

We’ll take a look at what happened to code, and what’s next for robotics. Don’t despair. The remedy is good!

In early 2023, U.S. tech industries cut more than 190,000 employees from the workforce. Tens of thousands were coders. Tens of thousands of individuals who spent billions of dollars to learn how to code, so that they could get a “good” job.

"The new philosophy calls all into doubt," wrote the poet John Donne over 400 years ago. Indeed, GenAI's prompt engineering has done just that.

Prompt engineering in AI is the process of designing and refining prompts—questions or instructions—which are at the heart of some of the most advanced AI applications…and growing.

Join us as experts Andrew Ng, Stephen Wolfram, and Michael Welsh walk us through the new world of GenAI and the unparalleled opportunities that await for those who don’t wait.

See also:

Did AI Just Free Humanity from Code?

What About You? A Primer to Combat GenAI Anxiety

Experts on AI & Robot Convergence for 2040 

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

Ah, the age of smart robots is upon us.

Thanks again for making This Is Robotics the #1 robotics news podcast worldwide…for two years running. 

We did some investigative journalism this month to find out why…and we were surprised at what we found. You will be as well. An article series on the topic we published in Asian Robotics Review titled Why So Little Robot Automation in America? got over 10,000 hits. Our email response from our readership attested to the fact that we were not the only ones surprised by our findings. It’s accompanied by a news report from CBS which also covered the strange state of robotics in the U.S.

Then we’ll dip off into What’s New in Robotics? What’s New in Robotics? is the blog we write in partnership with Robotiq. 

From the blog, we present here at This Is Robotics three FIRST-EVERS in robotics. We love what people have been doing with robots and cobots lately.  Simply amazing!

Two of them hail from Korea: Hyundai’s micro-factory in Singapore; and a huge breakthrough by Koreans in teaching robots to respond to the human voice. Then we nip over to Argonne Laboratories to see cobots in a first-ever making medical radioisotopes. 

We close out the podcast with what is the biggest story in robotics for the foreseeable future: Can Robots Save East Asia?

China, Korea, & Japan are suffering from a new pandemic: Too Few Workers, Too Many Elderly, and Too Little Automation.

China, Korea, and Japan are plagued with the very same “too few, too many, and too little” affliction simultaneously.

The clock is ticking on China, Korea, and Japan. The five years 2025 to 2030 will be critical. Each country has a plan. What is each doing…and can each plan work?

We have been following this mega-story since 2023. Along with an in-depth article series on the subject in Asian Robotics Review, we brought the story into this month’s podcast as well. We’ll show you what we know. 


As always, look in the show notes for all the links to the online articles. 

Thanks for coming. We appreciate your attention and loyalty.

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

Plus, it’s also the Year of the Dragon (2024)

The dragon, one of the luckiest and most powerful symbols offering prosperity, and good fortune throughout 2024. It is the perfect time for rejuvenated beginnings and setting the foundation for long-term success.

THE STATS ARE IN FOR 2023! 

Our podcast host just gave us the best-ever Christmas present from our listeners:

Once again, we are #1 worldwide for a robotics news podcast.

Across 12 time zones and 63 countries, This Is Robotics podcast was downloaded by over 3,000 fans per week!

Yearly, over 150,000 touchpoints with our listeners.

Every hour of every day 18 pairs of ears somewhere in the world seek us out for the very best news in robotics. Thank you so very much!

This closing episode for 2022, we highlight robots converging with artificial intelligence…in laboratories. Already making good headway, we look closely at what’s going on.

We’ll look at one fascinating woman’s brilliant insight on how best to discover a cure for our most intractable diseases, especially those without cures in neuroscience like ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's. 

How research is broken and how she’ll fix it. Hmmm, interesting. Her name, Alice Zhang, founder and CEO of Verge Genomics, and she just got $134 million to realize her brilliant insight.

We catch up with her at a lecture at Stanford where she explains it all.

Then we take a stab at answering a question we get all the time from our listening audience: How exactly do robots and AI work together in a laboratory to come up with miraculous discoveries as of late? 

We go to a lab in Liverpool UK where Andy Cooper explains it all.

Then, how are all these elements taking over the industry? And giving it a name like Pharma 4.0? We present a concise, little episode excerpt that explains it all.

Wow, that’s a lot of “explaining it all” but it’s all cool stuff.

We close out our show with one of our most favorite and memorable episode excerpts, one that we get a large call to repeat throughout the year. 

But, it just so happens to be a perfect Christmas story, so we retell it every December: It’s a story about China’s supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, without whom China would have no middle class or be the giant in robotics it is today. 

We call it China’s Christmas Miracle. A more heartwarming tale you can’t find anywhere.

SHOW NOTES ADDENDUM

Please see the show notes for more on the incurable disease that is ALS, including one very sad diary from a 31-year-old woman just diagnosed with ALS.

ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), formerly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurological disorder that affects motor neurons, the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement and breathing.

 As motor neurons degenerate and die, they stop sending messages to the muscles, which causes the muscles to weaken, start to twitch (fasciculations), and waste away (atrophy). 

ALS is progressive. Eventually, in people with ALS, the brain loses its ability to initiate and control vol

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

Oh, and BTW: Thanks for making us the #1 Global Robotics News Podcast for TWO YEARS IN A ROW. I’m Tom Green, your guide and companion into the wide, wonderful world of robotics. Welcome.

It’s that time of year when we take a look at Time Magazine’s picks for its Global Top Inventions for the year. This year, 2023, there are 200 selections in 21 different categories. 

Robotics, as usual, has its very own category, category #18, but my oh my, robotics, now with its new partnership in convergence with AI, has it ever seeped its way into nearly every other category. 

We’ll take a look at Time’s picks, plus we’ll pull one out and showcase it. It’s an amazing 5-year-old developer called Shift Robotics, from Pittsburgh. Shift has taken robotics, AI, and automation and brought them into the shoe business. Footwear!

What caught my eye was its founder, Xunjie Zhang, and his 3-minute description of the company’s design process, the "ask it, research it, plan it, create it, test it, and improve it" of finding a problem and coming up with a solution. Beautifully clear thinking and execution. Then we’ll see what Wired’s Brent Rose thinks about the company during his visit.

Following that is our annual Homage to Pittsburgh. A segment that we run every Thanksgiving. The heartwarming story of Pittsburgh’s fall and rise on the wings of robotics, after 29 steel companies filed for bankruptcy and left the city in tatters. 

I usually do a preamble to our Homage to Pittsburgh segment, but this year we have a contributor providing us with one. Florian Pestoni, well-known in the robotics biz as co-founder and CEO of InOrbit, a cloud robotics platform, who is also a pizza fanatic and a great admirer of Pittsburgh. He just made a trip to Pittsburgh and jotted down his thoughts. We’ll share them with you.

Then we’ll take a look at our newest website: Robo AI News where we aggregate and curate the best in the convergence of robotics with AI; and we’ll look to you guys to Get On Our Wall at Robo AI News. We’ll show you how. It’s simple but powerful. Robo AI News is dedicated to the most interesting man in the world: Garry Mathiason: The Man Who Knew Way Before! More on Garry a bit later in the show.

Okay, let’s get on with the news.

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

Question: Is it okay with everyone if we talk about 2024? 

I know it’s still October of 2023, but so much is at the ready for 2024 now that it seems a shame not to give the upcoming new year some mega attention.

Okay, deal. Let’s do it.

Welcome again to This Is Robotics, episode #25, October of 2023. I’m Tom Green, your host and companion as we take a robotics look forward at the upcoming New Year of 2024.

The word in the air and on the streets for 2024 is LOGISTICS. Yes, warehouses large and small, especially the small ones, DCs, and last-mile micro-warehouses have been in the news lately. 

And if you go back a few months, all the way to Walmart’s big meeting, big things have been brewing for a while.

So, without more ado, Happy New Year 2024.

From the Walmart shareholders meeting back in May, it was announced that Walmart was going all-in for robots and automation for 42 distribution centers in the U.S. and Canada. 

The lucky vendor is Symbotic, who Walmart has been working with for 4 years.

That news got the juices flowing because a few months later SoftBank and the aforementioned Symbotic agreed to partner for a new offering called GreenBox to sell WaaS…Warehouse as a Service.

That was followed by SoftBank and its secretive Project R squirreling around for even more of this purported new $500 billion market.

Which was followed by old friend Amazon, rolling out its new automation giant, Sequoia.

Then, halfway around the world, India for 2024 will use logistics during the build-out of Grade A warehouses, as well as to use logistics for nation-building for the country as a whole. 

In fact, the Asian Century that was last seen in China, is on the move away from East Asia and about to take up residence in India. As the late Swedish scientist and demographer Hans Rosling said: “In the past, economic growth was driving demographics, and now it's the other way around.” Demographics is driving economic growth. And nowhere is that more in evidence than in India. India, with over 36,000 warehouses, is going to have a very interesting 2024.

Then we have an announcement to make. This Is Robotics and its parent company Asian Robotics Review, have a new birth announcement to make. Our family this month is growing bigger. We are launching our newest website Robo AI News.com (roboainews.com), which will specialize in rounding up, sorting through, and artfully displaying the best news on robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). 

News that specifically heralds the convergence of robotics and AI…and our call to action for everyone in robotics with the ability to contribute to Get On Our Wall. Send us your best in the ongoing robotics/AI convergence and we’ll publish it…and promote it and you throughout our family of online publications. Here again is the link. Take a peek: Robo AI News.

The Asian Century: Emphasis, India

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Our first story explores the reasons for Why Is There So Little Automation in America?

As sci-fi writer William Gibson once remarked:  “The future is already here but it’s not evenly distributed.” Well, much the same can be said for automation in America. 

Why is it that only 5 out of 50 U.S. states get 77% of all industrial robots? Those states are Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas. While the remaining 45 states average 175 industrial robots apiece. 

 Those are definitely places that are "underautomated". Three recent reports explain why, and the whys are not good for America.

The reports also answer the question: Do robots take jobs? Yes, they do! For every one robot deployed in this 5-state region, 3.3 jobs are lost. The reports also tell us what happens to the health of those individuals who lose their jobs to an industrial robot. It can be unsurprisingly grim.

Death by Robots!

Facts: Yes, Robots Take Jobs and Lower Wages

This five-state region could well become a test zone—a laboratory, if you will—for America’s future in dealing with people, robots, artificial intelligence, job loss, retraining and reskilling. Perfect things in these 5 Robo Hubs, and then spread them out to the rest of the country.

We’ve been covering Korea’s robot $177 billion-dollar breakout all this year. See the links for Korea’s Major Growth Spurt in 2023 in our show notes. 

 Everything “robot” in Korea is getting max attention these days from the government, industry, and academia. Doosan is no exception. It’s going public and its cobots have an excellent shot at pushing themselves into being #1 worldwide. We take a look at Doosan and its upcoming IPO. 

And while we’re on the subject of cobots, what’s STILL up with them and their weaker-than-tepid sales? Arguably the most important technical advance in robotics in the last 50 years has got a problem: SALES! And it’s been a problem for a decade. We’ve got an answer or two as to why. Join us and see if you agree. 

As an added bonus, we are reprising in this podcast our episode clip and PDF download titled: The Problem with Cobots. It offers a nice perspective on cobots going forward and how Doosan could take the lead.

With Doosan’s new cobot venture, we may finally see cobot sales finally hit the mega-numbers that forecasters have been predicting for cobots for years.

 And finally, Agility Robotics is feeling very fertile these days and its new humanoid Digit is about to multiply. Join us for Agility’s shot at assembly-line humanoids. Maybe as many as 10,000 someday soon striding out soon out of the world’s first humanoid robot factory. A 70,000-square-foot-factory that Agility calls its RoboFab.

REPRISE: The Problem with Cobots

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

I’m Tom Green, your host and companion on this incredible journey called robotics.

For two years running now, we have been the #1 Robotics News Podcast worldwide…we’re up to over 100,000 fans, and you my dear folks put us at #1. Thank you very much.

And thanks for joining us today

It’s August, the harbinger of September,  and the 4th and final Quarter 4 for 2023. That year went fast! Maybe because it was such a rollicking year for GenAI converging with everything, especially robotics.

August observed National Kiss & Make Up Day. Did You? If not, and you’re still angry, indecisive, or ready to move on, we have a special segment that just may be of help. Sex Robots.

Could falling in love with a robot friend be such a bad thing?

Dr Helen Driscoll of the University of Sunderland says "The point is, people already fall in love with fictional characters, even if there is no chance to meet and interact with them." How many humans readily let go of their emotions and fall in love with a character in a movie? Plenty!

And we’ve also had an Astro sighting. You know Astro, Amazon’s $1600 diminutive home robot that rolled into our lives in 2021, and then disappeared. Seems Astro is now fueling up with GenAI, which Amazon has named Burnham. It won’t be around for a few years, says Amazon. Which for any other product would surely mean the kiss of death.

But, the entire category of home robots has also disappeared. What’s with that?

There’s a potential forecast looming that says home robots are looking at a marketplace of $16 billion. If they ever show up!

We love Coming to America stories, and our Orangewood Labs article is just such a tale of fresh ideas and hard work washing up on our shores. Just goes to show that immigrants come to the U.S. with more than their suitcases. 

Orangewood is about three Indian guys who are on a mission to democratize robotics for the small manufacturer, which is a segment in dire need of automation.

Okay, let's get on with the news.

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 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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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

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

 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.

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

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

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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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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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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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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Robots and cobots,  more and more, are beginning to exert an outsized impact on life-saving and disease-preventing new drug discoveries, medicines, and therapeutics. 

From drug discovery, to the manufacturing and packaging of new pharmaceuticals, the marriage of AI and robotics has been crucial to the process.

In what’s now being called Pharma 4.0, a new world is emerging for robots and cobots, and they are proving themselves up to the task, and then some.

NEW WORKPLACE LAW: NYC LAW 144

UPDATE: NOVEMBER 2022. New workplace law: NYC Law 144, which takes effect in 40 days or less, January 1, 2023. The new law covers the use of AI in hiring and promotions. Businesses in NYC will hire approximately 90,000 people in 2023 and all hiring will have to adhere to Law 144. There are over 200 robotics, AI and automation companies in NYC, which this law will most definitely impact. An adverse impact will have a definite ill-effect on innovation. What can be done, if anything, to avoid trouble?

And as with many laws emanating from New York, they have a habit of going nationwide, followed by worldwide implications as well.

The details: Confusion Reigns over Approaching New York City AI Bias Audit Law

TIME MAGAZINE’S BEST 200 INVENTIONS FOR 2022

WHAT’S NEW IN ROBOTICS? Time Magazine is out with its Best 200 Inventions for 2022. It’s got 25 separate categories, and robots are everywhere! Robotics,        now quickly integrating with AI, has seeped its way into a vast swarth of technology. And the future forecasts even more! Join us for a look. 

Read it all here: Robotiq: What’s New in Robotics? 18.11.2022

HOMAGE TO PITTSBURGH: BACK FROM THE BRINK!

The Fall & Rise of Pittsburgh: From Dying Steel Town to Global Robotics Hub. The inspirational story of America’s Steel Town collapsing and going bankrupt in the 1980s, and its fight to regain prominence as a great city and world renown as a global robotics hub.

Former Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said that during the 1980s and early 1990s, when every politician was saying how they were going to bring the mills back, there were people in Pittsburgh who were building out an entirely new economy based upon technology and education. “It was not an overnight success; it was 30 years of work!”

Join us for this heartwarming Thanksgiving tale of a city refusing to give up. It’s become a fan favorite worldwide and an instant holiday classic here at This Is Robotics.

Read more: From Dying Steel Town to Global Robotics Hub

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Post-COVID, tradeshows have been slowly lumbering back into the global event circuit this past year or so, most to highly receptive audiences. One of the biggest returnees, PACK EXPO International (Chicago, October 23-26), absent since 2018, promised to return larger than ever with a flurry of new looks, staging, and attendee outreach.

Upon hitting the show floor, the jump-out realizations to grab onto at Pack Expo 2022 are two: More cobots doing more things better and more flexibly than ever; and then, upon closer inspection of those same cobots, the fact that integration of cobot systems is the next great advance in robotics.  If that’s all you took away from the show, you would have, in a nutshell, seen the future of packaging and packing.

 PHILOSOPHY MEETS THE WORLD OF AI, ROBOTICS AND BIG DATA
We’ll visit the resumes of philosophy majors to see how they are uniquely qualified for the world of AI, robotics and big data. Yes, you heard right: philosophers.

According to David Deutsch, arguably the founding father of quantum computing, is betting on it in his article that he titles: “Philosophy will be the key that unlocks artificial intelligence.”

Yes, philosophy, that most ancient of human brain teasers. And if AI is to ever emulate the thinking capability of a human being, philosophy is the answer.

For all those job-hunting philosophers, listen up. Jobs are looking for you.

 INTERNATIONAL INTERNET DAY: WRONG DATE, WRONG PEOPLE…
 Every October 29th International Internet Day is celebrated around the world, but did you know that it’s the wrong date, the wrong people, and the wrong computers? Larry Roberts and Tom Marill did it first in February of 1966, three years earlier than 1969 event celebrated widely. And the reason why Larry and Tom did it is absolutely fascinating

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ROBO AI NEWS (NEW WEBSITE)

We have launched a new website that’s rapidly building itself out and nearing completion. It’s called RoboAINews (roboainews.com), and it’s located at roboainews.com. As its name denotes, it’s a website all about “smart robots” the convergence, that we see happening day by day, the inevitable convergence between robots and artificial intelligence. It’s a major step up for both robots and the rest of us, as “smart robots” are already changing the entire direction of robotics technology.

THE DEMISE OF DUMB
The rise of “smart” robots for factory and warehouse. A new generation of robots is on the rise, and their calling card reads, smart! A new type of robot, the “smart” robot, is quickening into reality. Robots (especially cobots) and mobile machines are getting interconnected with multiple sensors and onboard compute power, all imbued with artificial intelligence /machine learning (AI/ML), data analytics and cloud computing.  

WORLD ROBOTICS THROUGH THE YEAR 2030
Boston Consulting Group has put an interesting lens to the next decade of robotics, highlighting “seven unfolding developments that will influence the direction of robotics in the next ten years.”

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There’s a revolution in robotics just emerging in India that bears watching.

An unexpected revolution!

No one expects robotics revolutions to take place in India, no one ever has. Why?

Cerebral more than mechanical has been the rap most often heard about India. India has always shown itself fantastically adept at constructing unrivaled intellectual kingdoms.

However, India has been in search of its own, indigenous, mechanical realm in which to tinker and fashion, innovate and invent. 

Robotics just might be that magical realm. The long-awaited intersection of the cerebral with the mechanical.

The five Indian co-founders of Addverb Technologies have taken on the mission of bringing machine building, as robotics, to India

India: An Unexpected Revolution

 WORLD ROBOTICS THROUGH THE YEAR 2030
Boston Consulting Group has put an interesting lens to the next decade of robotics, highlighting “seven unfolding developments that will influence the direction of robotics in the next ten years.”

THE FOUR MOST REVOLUTIONARY ROBOTS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
We have our picks. What about yours?

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Farm Robots…and the coming explosion in their numbers. As the world moves toward an additional 2 billion people, going from 7 to 9 billion total, the global food supply, according to the UN, will need 70% more food. Farm robots are the only way that will happen. But, with millions of new farm robots, will farm robots become our next gas-guzzling, fume-spewing agents of climate change? It’s going to happen, but there is a solution.

Is This the Beginning of "Womb-to-Tomb" Algorithms?

Hiring algorithms, says a recent study, mistakenly reject certain men, women, and handicapped. What does that mean for future of robotics and tech staffing? 

Algorithms sift through our resumes; algorithms scrutinize our job interviews. They are also part of our annual performance reviews and raises, weigh in on our promotions, layoffs…even firings. New York City is cracking down on them, others may follow. See what we uncovered.

Nationwide Implications for New York City’s AI Bias Audit Law

Robots Offer Singapore a Bright Future

Like other countries in East and Southeast Asia, Singapore has taken on a 20-year project to build a robot technopolis or robot city.

The Jurong Innovation District (JID) has received $313 million in new investments over the past year. It’s part of Singapore’s future vision to mobilize Industry 4.0 and its Industrial Transformation Asia-Pacific plans into a place where robots, cobots, automation, industry, education, and people will coexist together in harmony that pegs robots and automation as “essential enablers” for its future.

Robots Offer Singapore a Bright Future, If…

 Who Are the New Heroes of Robotics?

They are not Hollywood creations. They are real, and their explorations are more than enough to send thousands of young people off in pursuit of careers in robotics. 

Yet very few kids know about them and their fantastic adventures.

Last month, I was asked to speak to a cohort of high school students hellbent on robotics careers. The group was a robotics scholars summer program for high school kids put on by SuperTech and Code Tenderloin in San Francisco. Great course; wonderful bunch of high schoolers.

Many young people are urged to get into robotics, but many times that’s as far as the advice goes. What awaits them in robotics is a bit of a mystery. For inspirational models, they harken to things like Star War’s sagas and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Nice, but there’s so much more, I told them. Like the new heroes of robotics. 

“Smart” Job Tracks Powered by Robotics & AI

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Daegu City Prospectus

MOXI AND THE WOMEN WHO BUILT HER 
 A well-deserved shout to Diligent Robotics scoring a $30 million investment, and what it means for service robotics as well as to robotics companies founded by women

CLASH OF TITANS: HACKING ROBOTS
 With all that’s going on in the world today, how do we cyber-harden our industrial robots from malicious interventions? With 3-million industrial robots deployed worldwide, protecting them is becoming a very real problem. The newest game in town for robots is defending themselves from hacking and cybercrime.

FANTASTIC FIVE
 Showcasing five ways to save big on robots, cobots and automation, while streamlining productivity on the cheap.

ELON AND HIS ROBOT HOMBRE
 Elon Musk, as humanoid robot builder, in a story we call Elon and His Robot Hombre. So what if he misses a few deadlines. You know he’s going to ace the final exam. 

Elon Musk is the best thing to ever happen to humanoid robotics.

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THE TROUBLE WITH COBOTS
 from 9/2021 podcast #2
Arguably the most important advance in robotics in the last 50 years has got a problem: sales. Why is that? Important and far-reaching consequences of those puny sales are a major concern for manufacturing and productivity.

SEX ROBOTS WILL NEVER MAKE YOU CRY
 from 8/2021 podcast #1
The allure, fascination and repulsion for humanity’s new best friend

THE FANTASTIC FIVE OF ASIA
 from 9/2021 podcast #2
Five fascinating robot innovations from Asia, each with a massive upside for the global robotics industry.

IS THIS THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMRs?
 from 11/2021 podcast #4
Unless you’ve been under a rock somewhere, you’ve undoubtedly heard the noise of their wheels and the rush of their whizzing by you, either on TV news, YouTube, or better, in person. What you’re seeing and hearing is the future arriving in a hurry. They’re called AMRs, robotics newest celebrities, autonomous mobile robots.

FINDING THE GENIUSES THAT ROBOTICS NEEDS Are You One of Them?
 from 2/2022 podcast #7
There are a million undiscovered geniuses in the world who, in order to be revealed and flourish, need to experience a spark of passion that ignites and illuminates their genius. Among them are roboticists-in-waiting who will change the world. Let’s find them. These 35 free online robotics courses—from superb educators at prestigious universities—certainly help. 

Visit the winners: Top 5 audio stories from previous podcasts

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FANTASTIC FIVE #2
Five Fantastic Robots That Are Transforming Industries and Changing Our World! Fantastic Five travels the globe looking for special, purpose-built robots that take on heretofore impossible challenges…and pull them off! Fantastic Five salutes the robots and the innovate teams that built them.

FINDING THE GENIUSES THAT ROBOTICS NEEDS Are You One of Them?
There are a million undiscovered geniuses in the world who, in order to be revealed and flourish, need to experience a spark of passion that ignites and illuminates their genius. Among them are roboticists-in-waiting who will change the world. Let’s find them. These 35 free online robotics courses—from superb educators at prestigious universities—certainly help. 

AND MORE...
 
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Website: Asian Robotics Review

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ROBOTS TO KEEP WINTER OLYMPICS SAFE
 The Winter Games are right around the corner. The massive Wukesong Arena is getting ready to host the ice hockey events for February’s Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 (February 4 to 20). For 16 days, over 30 robots will be deployed to help keep the players, staff, and thousands of fans safe from COVID.

ASK ANY COBOT: HUMAN WORKERS COST MORE THAN WAGES 
 Renting cobots: From Capex to Opex. Rent, lease, contract for, or Robots as a Service (RaaS)…whatever!  Not owning a cobot has a big upside that’s getting bigger. 

HOORAY FOR CONSTRUCTION ROBOTICS: ON THE RISE FOR 2022 Construction site cacophony. We’ve all suffered through the annoying din. Construction is not only noisy and a traffic nightmare, but it’s also inefficient, woefully expensive and dangerous. Thankfully, construction is now getting serious attention from automation and robotics, and 2022 might be a breakout year.

CHINA’S NEW TREND: PRECISION ROBOTICS 
 Precision robotics is a key competitive advantage. China turns hard-to-do robotics, like welding, grinding and polishing, into a powerful new industry.

AND MORE...
 
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CHINA’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR ROBOTICS
The first story in today’s People Program is as fantastic as it is true. It’s called China’s Christmas Miracle.  What this event meant for robotics and automation is incalculable. Funny things happen when you give people hope. This is a story about hope. China’s best-ever Christmas gift, December 1978: Deng Xiaoping and the birth of modern China.

YES, ROBOTS TAKE JOBS (NOW WE KNOW. WHAT NEXT?)
In Honor of Studs Terkel: Pink Slips for Old Technology. For every robot deployed in the U.S., three jobs are lost…permanently. Do the math, it’s only a matter of time until those deployments take their toll. Robots are necessary, but so are jobs for people. Here’s how to have both.

FLEXING PITTSBURGH’S ROBOTICS PROWESS
Pittsburgh’s transformation from dying steel town to a global robotics powerhouse has it positioned to help meet America’s greatest manufacturing challenges. ARM Institute is ready to train and upskill a workforce in robotics (for students, college graduates, and displaced workers …no matter what age you are!) Including Free 2022 how-to PDF download with links and references. 

HOME & HUMANOIDS FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Home for the holidays is not such a pleasant experience for millions globally. But it could be. Holiday Humanoids for those abandoned and living alone, the totally depressed…or the desperately lonely. The possibility of “relational AI” and humanoid robots combining to be wonderful companions for humans…and not just on holidays.

AND MORE...
 
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Website: Asian Robotics Review

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Pittsburgh: From Dying Steel Town to Global Robotics Hub by Henry Lenard

IS THIS THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMRS?
Unless you’ve been under a rock somewhere, you’ve undoubtedly heard the noise of their wheels and the rush of their whizzing by you, either on TV news, YouTube, or better, in person. What you’re seeing and hearing is the future arriving in a hurry. They’re called AMRs, robotics newest celebrities, autonomous mobile robots.

GLOBAL ROBOTICS PATENTS: THE PATENT WARS!
Patent activity is a useful indicator of technological progress and innovation in robotics. “Between 2005 and 2019, 72,618 robotics patents were granted worldwide.” Who is leading, who is on the rise, and who are the also-rans? 

In other words, the patent wars! Who’s winning? Let’s take a look.

THREE BREAKTHROUGHS: CAPSULE ROBOTICS, THE ALL-ROBOT AUTO PLANT, AND THE DEXTEROUS, FIVE-FINGERED COBOT HAND
Instrument-free, noninvasive diagnosis and therapy inside the digestive tract will be performed through a new branch of robotics: capsule robotics.

In Japan, it seems that only “smart” robots need apply for work at Nissan’s brand new “intelligent” auto plant.

What’s the next big breakthrough tech for the cobot. How about a dexterous, sophisticated five-fingered hand?

AND MORE...
 
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PHILOSOPHY MEETS THE WORLD OF AI, ROBOTICS AND BIG DATA
We’ll visit the resumes of philosophy majors to see how they are uniquely qualified for the world of AI, robotics and big data. Yes, you heard right: philosophers.

 INTERNATIONAL INTERNET DAY: WRONG DATE, WRONG PEOPLE…
Every October 29th International Internet Day is celebrated around the world, but did you know that it’s the wrong date, the wrong people, and the wrong computers? Larry Roberts and Tom Marill did it first in February of 1966, three years earlier than 1969 event celebrated widely. And the reason why Larry and Tom did it is absolutely fascinating.

 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.

 THE IMPORTANCE OF MACHINE TOOLS TO EVERYTHING
We’ll peer into the wonderful world of machine tools—tools that make tools, without which there are no robots, automation or smart factories. There are only three countries that dominate. Perish the thought that we have a trade war with any one of them.

 THE RISE OF DAEGU CITY
Have you ever heard about Daegu City? No? Thought so. Well, Daegu City (Korea) is on its way to being the largest and most influential Robotics Technopolis in Asia…maybe the world.

AND MORE...
 
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THE FANTASTIC FIVE
Five fascinating robot innovations from Asia, each with a massive upside for the global robotics industry.

CHINA AND ITS INLAND TRADING PARTNERS: ITS SUPERCITIES!
Morgan Stanley fanned out 30 researchers across China to take the automation pulse of five unique regions. The results are fascinating.

WORLD ROBOTICS THROUGH THE YEAR 2030
Boston Consulting Group has put an interesting lens to the next decade of robotics, highlighting “seven unfolding developments that will influence the direction of robotics in the next ten years.”

AND MORE...

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UNINTENDED COINCIDENCE has our premier program coinciding with National Kiss & Make Up Day (seriously, look it up) https://lnkd.in/de6xpbFF
In honor of NKMU Day, Radio News will take a look at the human fascination & repulsion for sex robots.

SEX ROBOTS WILL NEVER MAKE YOU CRY
The allure, fascination and repulsion for humanity’s new best friend

THE FOUR MOST REVOLUTIONARY ROBOTS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
We have our picks. What about yours?

FUTURE REVOLUTIONARIES: THREE TOP ROBOT CONTENDERS
Three contenders for the “most revolutionary” list ten years from now.
 
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This Is Robotics: Radio News is a new and very different robotics news program. One that we’re very excited about, and know that you’re going like a lot…and also find super useful. 

Radio News is a compilation of the best in robotics news, views and interviews gathered worldwide and presented as a 30-minute podcast. The global best in robotics!

Now you can consume the best in global robotics news while driving to work, waiting to board a plane, or at the breakfast table. Miss something? Stream it again. 

Want to go deeper? Go online to the This Is Robotics news page for the very same articles, as text, a bit longer, with links and references.

The overriding theme of Radio News is the same as the first three words everyone encounters at our website: Robotics, Automation and People. That’s our global news beat.

And we’re fun, never stuffy, and always on point. A refreshing news format and program covering the fastest-growing industry in the world…robotics!

Look for us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneInRadio, and Pandora.

Or, sign up for our weekly newsletters, and we’ll send Radio News directly to your inbox.

Please join us for the best news program in robotics. You're going to love what you hear!

This Is Robotics: Radio News is a production of Asian Robotics Review Specializing in Asia by Covering the World

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