International

Machine customers represent one of the biggest new growth opportunities of the decade, and business leaders must act now to create a path to entry to a business megatrend that will eventually be more significant than the arrival of digital commerce, according to Gartner.

In 2022, the tech industry experienced difficult times due to the collapse of cryptocurrency and 152,000 job losses, with innovation almost coming to a standstill. However, OpenAI released ChatGPT in early December of last year, which seemed like a lifeline for some, but a threat to others.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge carried out a study in a tech consultancy firm using two different robot wellbeing coaches, where 26 employees participated in weekly robot-led wellbeing sessions for four weeks. Although the robots had identical voices, facial expressions, and scripts for the sessions, the robots’ physical appearance affected how participants interacted with it.

The future of robotics is intelligent machines, working together with and augmenting the skills of humans. Marco van der Hoeven reports on the trends at ERF 2023, which is hosted this week at Odense , Denmark.

Yesterday Teradyne CEO Greg Smith addressed the audience at ERF 2023 in a keynote, highlighting the role robotics companies Universal Robots and MiR, both acquired by Teradyne in recent years, play in the strategy of the US-based technology company. With currently 11 million cobots that could be sold, the potential market for cobots is around $500 billion.

Marie Bjerre, the Danish Minister for Digital Government and Gender Equality, was the first keynote speaker at the European Robotics Forum held in Odense, Denmark. In her speech, the minister highlighted the rapid pace of technological advancement and the crucial role played by the robotics and artificial intelligence industries in transforming the way we live and work.

At the beginning of the European Robotic Forum 2023 the mayor of Odense, Peter Rahbæk Juel, highlighted the impact the robotics industry has had on his community. At a reception in Odense City Hall he said that the robotics cluster gives employment to 4,600 people, and already comprises an ecosystem of 130 companies.

In recent years, the integration of robots into the workplace has become increasingly prevalent. Nadine Reißner, Senior UX Researcher at KUKA, believes that it is time to put the human into focus in the development of robot technologies. For this, one important part is to consider  the impact of human-robot interaction on the human. In a workshop at the European Robotics Forum she presents the consortium’s initial findings on this topic.

Microsoft Germany has announced that GPT-4 will be released this week, according to the company’s CTO, Andreas Braun. The announcement was made during an event called “AI in Focus – Digital Kickoff” last week. The event focused on large language models (LLMs) like GPT, and their potential to disrupt companies, as well as Microsoft’s Azure-OpenAI offering.

The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) announced two longtime industry leaders as the winners of the 2023 Joseph F. Engelberger Robotics Awards, the world’s most prestigious robotics honor.