All posts tagged: autonomous

New DroneDog robot security guard gets to work

New DroneDog robot security guard gets to work

Published by skeptic

Humanoid robots are supposed to be the biggest thing in the history of anything, but despite real progress elsewhere, they’re still perpetually two years away. The quadrupeds? They’ve proven to be a little bit closer to prime time – and Boston Dynamics says its latest DroneDog is ready to stop job site theft and vandalism TODAY. The new robotic DroneDog combines Boston Dynamics’ Spot quadruped with the Asylon PupPack security payload. When paired with human monitors, its makers say it can reliably patrol your construction site, seven days a week, spotting (sorry) security breaches and tracking assets without ever calling in sick. Best of all, when the robot’s batteries run low, the DroneDog trots over to its trademark DogHouse – a ruggedized, high-impact plastic shell that protects the robot from the elements while it charges its batteries. In the DogHouse DroneDog puts itself away to charge; via Asylon. Asylon says its DroneDogs have already completed more than 250,000 automated security missions across a growing number of commercial and critical infrastructure sites. In addition, the company says DroneDogs …

Norway Approves Autonomous Buses for Public Roads

Norway Approves Autonomous Buses for Public Roads

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech After a ten-year period of trial and error, officials approved fully autonomous buses for operation in Norway, where they’ll soon mix in with human drivers on public roads. Unlike other autonomous bus initiatives around the world, there will be no human driver behind the wheel whatsoever. The approval, first reported by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), applies to buses operated by Vy, a national state-owned transit company, as well as Kolumbus, the regional transit authority for the Southwest county of Rogaland. Autonomous buses — known as “buses without hands on the wheel” in Norway — have been zipping around Rogaland since 2022, but they’ve always had a driver behind the wheel to monitor the vehicles and step in when needed, per NRK. That the safety monitor is being removed is a massive step for autonomous vehicles in Europe. The approved buses are built by Karsan, a Turkish bus manufacturer. Their e-ATAK model bus is designed to provide a …

Today Is the Day Anthropic Promised That Fully Autonomous Employees Would Be Tearing Through the Business World

Today Is the Day Anthropic Promised That Fully Autonomous Employees Would Be Tearing Through the Business World

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech A year ago today, AI giant Anthropic’s Chief Information Security Officer, Jason Clinton, made a bold pronouncement: within the next year, AI-powered employees will begin traipsing around the virtual innards of big companies around the world. Speaking to Axios in 2025, Clinton said these AI entities would have their own “memories,” as well as specialized roles within companies, which of course would come with a company ID number and login credentials. “In that world, there are so many problems that we haven’t solved yet from a security perspective that we need to solve,” the CISO told Axios. Clinton’s forecast was obviously meant as a warning to the information security world. But as the last year has shown us, it’s also dead wrong, and Clinton is far from the only tech executive to “warn” us about the rise of autonomous AI. Today, agentic AI — the buzz term for Clinton’s AI-powered virtual employees — is struggling to rise to …

Robotaxi expansion, HD EVs, and our pain at the pump survey

Robotaxi expansion, HD EVs, and our pain at the pump survey

Published by skeptic

On today’s pumped-up episode of Quick Charge, we notice how funny it is that Tesla makes a big Robotaxi announcement every time the TSLA earnings call looks like a disappointment. Tesla’s tiny territory maps in Houston and Dallas underscore just how difficult it’s been for the brand’s camera-only autonomous driving ambitions to yield anything like Elon’s early promises, and the timing of the announcement – just days ahead of what’s bound to be a tough, tough Q1 earnings call – leaves a lot to be desired. We’ve also got a massive, 600-ton electric excavator in India and a 40+ tonne quad-axle electric semi from Mercedes-Benz that is ready to do some real dirty work. All that and the results of our “pain at the pump” survey, when you hit “play.” Source Links Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Advertisement – scroll for more content New episodes of Quick Charge are (allegedly) recorded several times per week, most weeks. We’ll be posting bonus audio content …

Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings

Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings

Published by skeptic

Tesla launched its “Robotaxi” service in Dallas and Houston yesterday — expanding to two new cities for the first time since Austin. There’s just one problem: there are virtually no cars available. Data from Robotaxi Tracker shows that Tesla’s new Houston and Dallas deployments have had 0% to 2% availability over the past 24 hours, with only brief spikes to around 50% during a narrow morning window before dropping back to zero. It looks like Tesla deployed a car or two in each city and called it a launch. The pre-earnings pattern If this sounds familiar, it should. In January, Tesla announced it had launched “unsupervised” Robotaxi rides in Austin — just days before its Q4 2025 earnings call. The stock jumped 4% on the news. But as we reported at the time, Tesla’s ‘unsupervised’ Robotaxis vanished a week after that pre-earnings announcement. Now Tesla is running the same playbook. Q1 2026 earnings are on Wednesday, April 22 — three days from now — and the company suddenly has a “Robotaxi is now rolling out …

The Future of Your Garden: An industry expert on the rise of autonomous mowing

The Future of Your Garden: An industry expert on the rise of autonomous mowing

Published by Daniella Wilson

It’s boom time for autonomous mowing, with the market growing exponentially and new technology helping to drive the shift from manual labour to “set and forget” garden maintenance. We talked to a Miimo expert at Honda UK about the rise of autonomous mowing and how robots are transforming the gardening experience. What’s behind the growth in autonomous mowing? There’s been a shift in the way people think about mowing their lawn. Some still take great pleasure from it, but growing numbers of keen gardeners see it as a task they need to get out of the way before they can get on with the creative side of horticulture. They want to attend to their flowers, shrubs, and borders, and they’re glad to see the back of a “donkey work” sort of job that can be done by a robotic mower. Have there been any leaps forward in the technology that help explain this growth? “One of the big changes has been the introduction of mobile connectivity, which enables the mowers to be controlled by an …

Autonomous robo-taxis now driving themselves on British streets | Science, Climate & Tech News

Autonomous robo-taxis now driving themselves on British streets | Science, Climate & Tech News

Published by skeptic

Autonomous taxis are now driving themselves around London streets, the American company behind the technology has announced. The self-driving cars have been in the capital since last autumn, but until now, they were under the manual control of “safety drivers”. Now, Waymo says, they’re being controlled by artificial intelligence, albeit with a human sitting in the driver’s seat just in case. Image: A Waymo car drives itself through London. Pic: Waymo The company has had humans driving the cars across “tens of thousands of miles on London roads”. “The early mileage provides a baseline of context for the Waymo Driver, and has enabled our team to train the Driver in a simulated London environment,” it said. Image: A Waymo car navigates past a cyclist. Pic: Waymo Within the “past few weeks”, however, the company told Sky News it had started letting the cars take control. When can I order a ride in a robo-taxi? Waymo described today’s announcement as “the next step” towards “fully autonomous passenger service[s] later this year, pending government approval”. Image: Waymo …

Oshkosh ground support robots take on air travel’s hidden costs

Oshkosh ground support robots take on air travel’s hidden costs

Published by skeptic

The war in Iran continues to ratchet up fuel prices, and that doesn’t just make it more expensive to drive – it’s getting more expensive to fly, too. What many don’t realize is that a significant share of an airline’s operating costs are tied to ground operations, and that’s where Oshkosh is putting automation and electrification to work. With the short distances driven at limited speeds under relatively heavy loads, ground handling and support equipment (GHE/GSE) at airports present a nearly ideal use case for battery-electric vehicles. That’s a good thing, too. As prices rise and demand for on-road fossil fuels drops, airports and airlines – historically responsible for about 4% Earth’s global warming – are becoming a bigger and bigger slice of a rapidly shrinking pie when it comes to the aviation industry’s fossil fuel emissions. That’s why companies like Oshkosh are working to develop zero-emission vehicles like the Stryker Volterra Electric ARFF fire truck and the autonomous aircraft tug shown, above. All managed by the AeroTech AI ground traffic manager. Even with the sort of high-tech angle that …

Build Autonomous AI Subagents to Automate Code Workflows

Build Autonomous AI Subagents to Automate Code Workflows

Published by skeptic

AI-driven task automation is evolving rapidly and the integration of Antigravity’s mission control system with Arcade’s MCP runtime showcases a compelling leap forward. As highlighted by World of AI, this system enables the deployment of specialized AI subagents capable of breaking down complex workflows into manageable steps. For instance, onboarding new employees becomes a streamlined process, with subagents handling tasks like setting up accounts, assigning permissions and distributing training materials. By combining Antigravity’s orchestration capabilities with Arcade.dev’s secure execution layer, this approach bridges the gap between planning and action, creating a cohesive framework for automating intricate workflows. In this deep dive, you’ll explore how this integration facilitates multi-agent collaboration for tasks like software development and IT operations. Gain insight into the system’s ability to interact with over 7,500 external platforms, from managing repositories to scheduling meetings. Discover how its robust security infrastructure safeguards sensitive data while maintaining transparency through detailed audit logs. Whether you’re interested in automating repetitive tasks or scaling operations seamlessly, this guide provides actionable insights into building an autonomous AI engineering team. …

Biggest ever Komatsu PC9000-12 electric excavator goes global

Biggest ever Komatsu PC9000-12 electric excavator goes global

Published by skeptic

The new electric-drive Komatsu PC9000-12 is the largest hydraulic excavator in the brand’s storied history, capable of moving a massive, 80 tons of material, per pass – at a rate of more than 8,000 tons per hour of operation. Following a successful deployment at Suncor’s Fort Hills oil sands mine in Alberta, Canada (boo) last May, Komatsu’s two million lb. monster excavator is now available for global sales and deliveries. The company says the new machine will help large-scale mining operations hit higher productivity, efficiency, and cost per ton goals while delivering the performance, and reliability they’ve come to expect from the brand’s previous PC8000 line. Designed to operate in the world’s toughest mining environments, the PC9000-12 can be configured with grid-connected electric drive for maximum power with minimal emissions, noise, and vibrations. “The PC9000-12 sets a new benchmark for global surface mining operations,” explains Peter Buhles, Komatsu Vice President, Sales and Service. “With its versatile configurations – including face shovel and backhoe, as well as diesel and electric drive options – we can efficiently serve …