Alphabet closes Everyday Robots among layoffs

-

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is shutting down its subsidiary Everyday Robots, according to reporting from Wired. 

On January 20, 2023, Alphabet announced it would be laying off around 12,000 workers, 6% of its workforce, and Everyday Robots is one of the few projects disbanded as part of the budget cuts. Some of the technology and part of the Everyday Robots team will be consolidated into existing robotics projects within Google Research, Denise Gamboa, director of marketing and communications for Everyday Robots, told Wired. 

The company graduated from Alphabet’s X moonshot lab just over a year ago. The company taught over a hundred wheeled, one-armed robots to clean cafeteria tables, separate trash from recycling and open doors. 

Everyday Robots wanted to create flexible and adaptable robots that could be used outside of industrial environments. The company’s first prototype was unveiled in 2021, and in 2022, it was upgraded with Google’s AI language research to allow them to process natural language commands. 

Robotics Summit (May 10-11) returns to Boston

Register Today

While the company had ambitious goals for its robots, they didn’t seem to ever make the commercialization stage even a decade after Alphabet acquired the company, although the robots did do some cleaning around Alphabet’s offices. Some of Alphabet’s other moonshot projects, like Loon, which created internet-beaming balloons, have already shut down for this very reason. 

Other previous moonshot projects, like Wing, a drone grocery delivery company, and Waymo, an autonomous driving company, still appear to be going strong. At the end of last year, Waymo announced that it would be expanding its service area in both San Francisco and Phoenix. 

According to Wired‘s reporting, a former employee from Everyday Robots said that the company struggled to determine the company’s mission. The team couldn’t decide if they were aiming for an advanced research project or a commercially viable product. 

Everyday Robots employed over 200 people, and Alphabet did not give any details about how many of those employees, or which, would be staying on with the company. 

The post Alphabet closes Everyday Robots among layoffs appeared first on The Robot Report.



from The Robot Report - Robotics News, Analysis & Research https://ift.tt/JZLC3az
via artificialconference

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chipotle testing avocado processing robot in test kitchen

-
Image
Chipotle Mexican Grill announced Autocado, an avocado processing cobotic prototype that cuts, cores, and peels avocados before they are hand mashed to create the restaurant’s famous guacamole. The prototype, developed in collaboration with Vebu , is currently being tested at the Chipotle Cultivate Center in Irvine , California.  How Autocado works  A team member loads Autocado with a full case of ripe avocados and selects the size setting. Autocado can hold up to 25 lbs. of avocados at once. One at a time, avocados are vertically oriented, then transferred to the processing device. The avocados are sliced in half. Their cores and skin are automatically removed, and the waste is discarded.  The fruit is safely collected in a stainless-steel bowl at the bottom of the device.  A team member removes the bowl of avocado fruit and moves it to the counter where they add additional ingredients and hand mash the avocados to make Chipotle’s signature guacamole.  How the Autocado idea s
Read more

Inside Comaus testing of Intrinsic Flowstate

-
Image
Intrinsic tested its latest platform and Flowstate with Comau , an Italian-based robot manufacturer and global systems integrator. Comau has been working with Intrinsic for several years now to validate Intrinsic’s platform technology and developer product, Flowstate, through real-world use cases.  Flowstate, announced earlier this year in May , is a robotic software development platform. It’s Intrinsic’s first developer product built on the Intrinsic platform. Comau was also introduced as the company’s first industry partner in May.  The Intrinsic Flowstate software  adds a layer of abstraction to traditional robotic software tools with the goal of reducing the development skillset required while making it easier than ever before to program a robot in simulation. “Partnering with Comau over the years has brought our team a tremendous amount of expertise, knowledge, and real-world use cases to focus our efforts on. We’re excited for what’s next and what it will mean to the solutio
Read more

ABB launches Flexley mobile robots, completing rebranding of ASTI AMRs

-
Image
Rebranded ABB Flexley autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) completes the integration of ASTI into ABB Robotics business. | Credit: ABB ABB launched its first range of rebranded Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) following its acquisition of mobile robot leader ASTI Mobile Robotics in 2021 for $190M . ASTI Mobile Robotics’ solutions are now rebranded and integrated into ABB’s portfolio, grouped under the Flexley name, indicating the flexibility of operations that the AMRs offer. The first rebranded models to be released, Flexley Tug and Flexley Mover, cover applications including towing, trolley transportation up to 5,350 lbs (2000 kg), as well as lifting and transporting racks, containers and pallets of 4,000 lbs (1,500 kg). The ABB Flexley Mover (l) and ABB Flexley Tug (r) become the first rebranded ABB AMRs to be released. | Credit: ABB ABB joins OMRON corporation as the second automation solutions company to offer a complete lineup of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), industrial robo
Read more