Heartland Raises $20 Million, Talks Big About Robots

$20 million richer, but no clearer on what they are actually producing, Heartland remains a tantalizing mystery to investors.

What do Roombas and Kindles have in common? They’re fueling the next generation of industrial robots. Rodney Brooks, one of the founders of iRobot, has been developing his new company, Heartland Robotics, for the past few years. Recently Heartland announced it had raised $20 million in series B funding. Among the second round of financiers is returning investor Bezos Enterprises, the personal fund of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. According to Brooks, Heartland Robotics will revolutionize the field of industrial robots, moving us away form big bulky machines that are dangerous to be around. The working robot of the future will be safer, smarter, and cheaper. At least, that’s Heartland’s plan. We’ve yet to see a hint, let alone a working prototype, of what the new company is developing. Still, with Brooks’ impressive history in robotics, and with a growing pile of capital to draw upon, Heartland Robotics may be able to live up to its claims.

As we’ve mentioned in our past Heartland coverage, it looks like Brooks may be building off of a humanoid grasping arm called Obrero. Frustratingly, no one from the new company has confirmed that premise or proposed alternatives. In a general way, however, Brooks made his thoughts on the current stand of manufacturing robots clear in a presentation to Maker Faire in 2009. I’ve shown parts of this before so I just want to share a brief clip (see the following) where he addresses ways to improve robots. I’m not sure what Heartland is building, but judging from these comments they are probably focusing on visual and audio recognition, and pairing that to improvements in dexterity.

Even without knowing exactly what Heartland is up to the internet media as well as investor groups seem to believe its potential is remarkably big. That perception is enhanced by some of the over-the-top rhetoric coming out of the company. Brooks and iRobot have been pivotal players in US robotics, but these claims seem grandoise even for him. I’ll leave you to mull over the ones below on your own. Can Heartland, or any single company, enact this kind of innovation in industrial robotics? Too early to say…but if they succeed it’s going to cause some profound and wonderful changes to the way we produce everything.

Our robots will be intuitive to use, intelligent and highly flexible. They’ll be easy to buy, train, and deploy and will be unbelievably inexpensive. Heartland Robotics will change the definition of how and where robots can be used, dramatically expanding the robot marketplace.

—Rodney Brooks, Heartland Robotics Press Release 11/30/2010

********

It used to be the stuff of science fiction. Now it’s simply science. Robotics has advanced to the point where industrial robots are no longer the sole province of a few big manufacturers in a handful of industries. Soon any manufacturer will be able – quickly, affordably, with no special technical skills – to acquire a robot and integrate it into the production process.

— Taken from the Heartland Robotics website.

********

Robots will change the way we work.

They will have intelligence and awareness. They will be teachable, safe and affordable. They will make us productive in ways we never imagined.

Robots will reinvigorate industry and inject new life into the economy. Making businesses more competitive. Keeping jobs from moving overseas. Demonstrating the power of American ingenuity.

Robots will change how we think about manufacturing. And Heartland will change how we think about robots.

— Taken from the Heartland Robotics website.

[image credit: Heartland Robotics]

[source: Heartland Robotics, Press Release (PDF)]

Japan’s Robot Picks Only the Ripest Strawberries (video)

With multiple cameras and sharp pincers, this robot resembles an insect pest. However, it could help revolutionize fruit picking.

It takes more than a green thumb to be a great farmer, super-human vision helps as well. The Institute of Agricultural Machinery at Japan’s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, along with SI Seiko, has developed a robot that can select and harvest strawberries based on their color. Ripened berries are detected using the robot’s stereoscopic cameras, and analyzed to measure how red they appear. When the fruit is ready to come off the vine, the robot quickly locates it in 3D space and cuts it free. From observation to collection, the harvesting process takes about 9 seconds per berry. Creators estimate that it will be able to cut down harvesting time by 40%. Prototypes are currently being tested in the field with marketable versions expected in the next few years. This artificial agriculturalist was recently recognized by the 4th Annual Robot Award of the Year in Japan. You can see why in the videos below. If we adapt its combination of visual acuity and manual dexterity for other produce, the strawberry harvesting robot could help reshape industrial agriculture.

A typical berry field one square kilometer in size takes about 500 hours to harvest. With its speedy evaluation, the strawberry picking robot could cut this down to around 300 hours. Not only that, but every berry would have a quantifiably similar level of ripeness based on color, and would be harvested with a minimum of bruising. Robots will also be able to harvest during the night (as shown in the videos below) allowing for the fruit to reach market closer to optimum freshness. These improvements in speed and quality will likely translate to millions of dollars saved each year for the industry as a whole. Even if we focus on strawberries alone, robots like this one make a lot of sense.

Here is raw footage of the robot in action:

DigInfo’s coverage has a great interview with an IAM representative from NARO, and shows how the robot views the fruit it picks for harvest:

Of course, the real potential of this robot extends far outside harvesting just strawberries. Berries have a relatively high value per fruit, and can be raised in controlled conditions very well, so they are an ideal first test case. Clearly, however, the lessons that NARO is learning with the strawberry robot are going to apply to tomatoes, grapes, and many other plants with similar anatomies. Crop selection based on color would be useful for almost all fruits, as well as many other forms of produce. Stereoscopic vision, which allows the robot to accurately locate the fruit in 3D space and remove it without damage, could help with any agricultural project, and is a big part of the robotics industry as a whole.

We’ve seen other projects which highlight the potential of robots in the gardens, fields, and farms of the world. MIT developed prototype bots that could monitor, feed, and harvest tomato plants. Robots have been an important part of dairy farming, and continue to increase in scale and skill. Such machines allow humans to fill management roles and let robots maintain cheaper, healthier, and more valuable crops.

The automation of agriculture could prove to be a pivotal development in the early 21st century, akin to the adoption of combustion engines in the early 20th century. Just as horses were eventually replaced by tractors, humans may find themselves replaced by robots in the remaining realms of agricultural labor in which they still hold sway.

It will be a few years, however, before NARO’s strawberry robot is threatening anyone’s job. Yes, the sophistication of the bot is wonderful to behold, but the device is still in field tests. Developers will need to finish that research, redesign the robot accordingly, and then market the device. Who knows how long it would take it to hit the global agricultural industry. That’s assuming, of course, that the robot’s costs (for electrical power, maintenance, etc) are low enough not to interfere with the benefits it produces in harvest effeciency and quality.

Given enough time, however, it will make economic sense to pick berries with robots rather than humans. The history of industrial agriculture teaches us that if a worker can be replaced by a machine, they will be. Yet despite the obvious disruptions this causes in employment, I think the eventual move towards robotic agriculture is a vital one. We are still fighting global hunger, and anything that can increase our productivity and efficiency in agriculture is likely a valuable step towards solving that grand challenge. The strawberry robot is a relatively small development, but it’s a good one.

[screen capture: meminsider]

[video credit: DigInfo News, meminsider]

[source: DigInfo]

New Video Of Cyborg Professor With a Camera on the Back of His Head!

Wafaa Bilal tinkers with his newly installed camera. Is the cybernetic artist's new eye a sign of things to come?

Never question the resolve of an artist. First off, they are crazy enough to do anything. More importantly, some of them are secretly cyborgs. NYU Professor Wafaa Bilal announced his intent to install a camera on the back of his head earlier this season, and, true to his word, he is now walking around with the device surgically implanted. Bilal, an Iraq-born artist, has a history of controversial projects aimed at getting audiences to explore the limits and boundaries of society. Now, his backwards facing camera will stream the part of the world he never sees to visitors at the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar. The art project, entitled “The 3rd I” will go live on December 15th and continue for a year. Take a look at the cybernetic camera and listen to Bilal explain his work in the video from the Associated Press below. Two hours of surgery with nothing but local anesthesia – well, no one said becoming a cyborg (or an artist) was easy.

As we discussed in our earlier coverage, Bilal’s artistic venture into lifelogging is about more than getting an extra set of eyes in the back of his head. It’s also about exploring how society excepts the changing mores about recording what’s around you. NYU administrators have required Bilal to cover the camera while on campus to preserve the privacy of their students. Students who in all likelihood take pictures of each other all the time and share intimate details about hookups on Facebook. To NYU, there’s still a difference between choosing to be recorded, and having someone record you without your knowledge. Could that change? The upcoming generation is being raised in a culture that’s far more open than the previous one. How long until they expect every part of their lives to be captured on video? Bilal’s previous artworks have explored American angst about terrorism, global racism, and war. “The 3rd I” seems less dramatic in comparison, but I think the issues it raises could become more important in the years ahead than anyone expects.

[screen capture and video credit: Associated Press]

[source: The 3rd I, WafaaBilal.org, AP]

The Pills Have Eyes: Microchipped Medicine Is Coming

The Proteus chip transmits data from your stomach.

Open wide! Earlier this month, Swiss pharma giant Novartis announced it will be seeking regulatory approval of “smart pills” embedded with microchips within the next 18 months. The chip-on-a-pill, developed by Proteus Biomedical (and snatched up by Novartis for $24 million), will transmit data from the body to doctors, helping them to track med intake and tweak dosage. We previously covered the Proteus system’s clinical trials; now it looks like it will see European regulators by 2012.

So how does it work? The microchip is embedded in a normal pill – Novartis is starting with meds for organ transplantation, but the chip could be attached to any existing medication. As stomach acid breaks down the pill, it activates the microchip, which transmits time-stamped data to a patch worn on the patient’s skin. The patch then relays the data to your local wireless signal or smartphone, where it’s sent to your doctor (via a series of tubes). This lets your doctor ensure you’re taking the proper dosage at the proper time – or that you’ve taken your meds at all.

The system could also pass along important biometrics, like temperature and heart rate. Novartis has exclusive rights to the technology, which it plans to package first with existing medication that mitigates dangers of organ transplant. Following a transplant, patients require immunosuppressive drugs to reduce the risk of organ rejection; but this kind of therapy can increase the chances of infection. These dual dangers make dosage an important metric for doctors to monitor, and a good application of the microchip technology.

Novartis hopes to side-step a lengthy full regulatory review because its chip is attached to medications that are already on the market. If the chip is safe and doesn’t affect the normal drug action, it would be considered bioequivalent and skip some red tape. But regulators will be interested in more than bio-safety; the wireless transmission of information brings up questions of data security. Can a 3rd party intercept the signal? Figure out who takes what drugs, when, and in what doses? Regulators will be looking to ensure that individual data is transmitted securely, and for good reasons.

Data security aside, the idea of microchipped meds seems like uncharted ethical waters. I haven’t seen much discussion of the first application that jumped to mind: psychiatric medication. There are a wide range of reasons why people skip doses – forgetfulness, unwanted side effects, or plain old rejection of doctor’s orders. The context is also crucial here: are we talking about skipping a dose of Prozac at home? Or palming Clozaril at the hospital? Refused or skipped meds are notorious problems within the psychiatric community, and chipped drugs would add a new level of control over patients’ lives. Foucault would have a field day.

Skipped meds aren’t the only issue. What would be the consequences for drug abuse? It doesn’t seem too far-fetched for chips to be able to report who took which drugs, and where. This would have some major consequences for the rampant black market for painkillers in the US; could law inforcement get their hands on drug use data? Opiates wouldn’t be the only issue; imagine doctors (or police) tracking the actual use of Adderall across a modern university campus. During finals week.

Set aside the paranoia, and the potentials for personalized medicine are tremendous. We’ve talked about the promises of body 2.0 previously. As the chip technology is improved, it could be used to watch individual drug uptake and action; treatments could be fully customizable in real-time. That could mean patients wouldn’t need to wait weeks to determine if a drug was compatible, or have to switch medication several times. If you were in the 2% who will experience a particular side effect, your doctor could know before it kicked in. The promise for customizable treatments is a powerful one, and it’s already a driving force in biotech.

In my mind, this technology straddles the line between body 2.0 exciting and dystopia/panopticon creepy. I like lying to my dentist about how much I floss. Of course there are far less benign examples, but the question of privacy is tightly wrapped up in this kind of biotech. As per the cliché, new advents in technology make new things possible – some we want, and some we don’t. Microchipped medication will be here soon. We should start discussing what to do once it arrives.

[images courtesy of Proteus Biomedical, Stumptuous.com]

[source: Reuters]

Video Game Exercise Bikes Ride onto the Social Network

Video game enhanced exercise is turning to the social network for more fuel.

Do you feel like you need to spend more time at the gym? You’re on the internet, of course you do. Why not let video games keep you motivated to exercise? Special accessories like the Wii’s Balance Board or X-Box’s Kinect let you burn a few calories while you play, but that only goes so far. To get a really strong cardio workout, gyms have installed full-size exercise bicycles that let you pedal around an imaginary track shown on a computer screen. At some point, however, the novelty of cycling through a virtual countryside will fade as well. What’s the final tool to keep us returning to our game-enhanced exercise equipment? Competition and shame. Like so many other technologies, video gaming stationary bicycles are taking advantage of the social network to increase their appeal. Interactive Fitness Holdings’ Expresso Bike not only lets you race against other people in your gym, it helps you share your scores on Facebook and Twitter. Few things may encourage you to pedal faster than receiving a smug tweet from your friend bragging about their latest time trial. The Expresso has hit upon a very powerful hook: when you can struggle against strangers, your friends, and yourself, you’ll never run out of competition to keep you in the race.

Expresso shares your exercising efforts with friends via Facebook or Twitter.

Stationary bikes hooked up to video games are nothing new. Various forms of the Expresso have been selling for almost five years, and there are many other competing bike companies out there, not to mention the Wii Fit, EA Active, and other titles available on traditional video game consoles. “Exer-gaming” is a growing industry, and Expresso is just one of many products you could choose to help you have fun while getting in shape. That being said, the Expresso bike does have almost all of the cool features that exemplify the field. Many of which can be seen in the video below.

There are 30+ tracks, with more created every year. Music is built into the system so you can listen while you ride. The stationary bike has a steerable set of handlebars, allowing you to control where you go as well as how fast you get there. There is a gear-shifting control that varies resistance and gives you a mild mental challenge as you plan the best resistance for each terrain. Expresso also lets you play a variety of games, including chasing down moving targets, racing against a pace-setting virtual biker, or even riding alongside a ‘ghost’ that represents your position in a previous race. With the latest update to the Expresso software, you can now share all of these features with other riders in your social network. A “Ghost Challenge” lets your friends race against you even when they are miles away or arrive hours later to the gym.

For those who really like to compete, you can send a virtual avatar to a friend (a 'ghost') that will let your opponents see a recording of your performance on their screen as they bike.

The ability to play against opponents even when they aren’t available is a really cool aspect of bringing exer-gaming to the social network. We all have our different schedules, and it’s hard enough to get yourself to the gym, let alone coordinate with a partner. Asynchronous competition is a great tool that lets you benefit from the personal relationship (or all-out war) you have with a fitness buddy without their physical presence. I’m waiting for Expresso (or a competitor) to incorporate a microphone and audio recording so that you can taunt your opponents in real time or leave verbal encouragement for yourself later.

As cool as it is to see video game exercise bikes sharing through Facebook and Twitter, I have to admit that this is far from a real innovation. First, people have been able to share exercise states, dieting tips, and video game experiences over networks for years now. Second, including a social networking aspect into your company’s product isn’t visionary, it’s just plain necessary. IF Holdings has a great exercise bike in Expresso, but letting users challenge each other across the internet seems like a really obvious choice.

Still, who really cares whether or not Expresso’s move towards the social network is mind-blowing – it’s what we need. More and more of our lives are becoming interactive and exciting. The internet is spoiling us – it’s harder to pay attention to events that aren’t fun, challenging, and connected to others. Let’s face it, many of us find exercise boring and overly difficult. Why ride your bike for an hour when it’s easier to troll YouTube? Exer-gaming is a great step towards making exercising as engaging as the digital world, but it’s the social connectivity that really has the chance to make it a challenger to internet-fueled inactivity. Expect more gym equipment, full body video games, and virtual sports to jump on the social networking bandwagon in the future.

Now if they could only find a bicycle that lets you pedal and write blog posts at the same time, I would be set.



[image credits: IF Holdings]

[video credits: IF Holdings]

[sources: IF Holdings, Press Release via BusinessWire]

Dan Sheniak from Wieden + Kennedy on the future of the big idea [with 6 cool videos]

I spent the day at the Ninemsn Digital Marketing Summit - possibly the first event I've been to this year where I wasn't a speaker. See my separate posts on Jeffrey Cole's presentation and notes from other presentations at the Summit.

In the afternoon Dan Sheniak, Global Media Director at Wieden + Kennedy, talked about the future of the big idea in a world of fragmented media, liberally using examples from their recent work, notably for Nike and Old Spice. Here are some notes from his presentation together with some of the videos he showed.

We are living in a communications revolution. Complex, evolving, chasing rather than leading, more questions than answers.

We are all feeling the same things.

Tougher to impact consumers in this fragmented world.

It all starts with having a meaningful relationship between a brand and a consumer. For example, Nike's relationship with athletes, with their mission making athletes better.

Before we had thre of four ways to tell a story. Today, we have a million ways to do it. If your ideas stinks, then is can stink in a million different ways.

It all starts with a big idea.

Dan told the story of how the original Old Spice 'I'm on a horse' TV commercial was used as a springboard into perhaps the most successful social media campaign ever. The bottom line was an increase of 107% in sales of Old Spice over the course of the initial TV ad and subsequent YouTube viral campaign.

Collaboration across disciplines brings bigger ideas. Need to create mini-think-tanks of designers, technologists, creatives and more.

Collaboration = More inventive. More experiential. More open and engaging.

Lance Armstrong launched the cancer support organization Livestrong with the help of Nike, with presence across multiple mainstream and social media platforms. To the point of collaboration, one of the diverse group brainstorming the initial ideas for the campaign suggested using a robot on the Tour de France to share people's tweets of support on the road.

Can your brand be bold? Can your brand take people being bold back?

Dan went on to talk about basketballer' LeBron James' decision to shift to Miami Heat from Cleveland Cavaliers. The negative response on social media was extreme, leading to Nike to engage Wieden + Kennedy to reframe the conversation.

The ad shifted sentiment to be primarily positive for LeBron, and the campaign was broadly taken up, by among others South Park.

'When you make something no one hates, no one loves it.' Tibor Kalman

Ideas have the opportunity for consumers to have a deeper experience with your brand. Setting up your point of view has to integrate with allowing consumers to engage with your brand in a natural way.

Making an Impact in the Digital and Social Media Communications Era: Panel at Ketchum Global Media Network in New York

I was recently on a panel at Ketchum's Global Media Network meeting in New York with Chrystia Freeland, Global Editor-at-Large at Reuters News and former US editor of Financial Times, and John Mervin, head of the BBC News bureau in New York, moderated by Nicholas Scibetta, Partner and Global Director of the Global Media Network. The topic was Technology and the Global Media Landscape: Making an Impact in the Digital and Social Media Communications Era.

It was a fantastic discussion which covered a lot of territory. Below are quick unedited snippets I managed to capture during the panel, sitting with my iPad and keyboard on my lap on the stage.

The biggest trend is globalization. IBM illustrates this. From 2003 to today its staff in India has risen from 7,000 to 75,000, whereas its US workforce has fallen by 30,000 to 100,000.

Quoting Ken Lerer of Huffington Post: 25 years ago it took 25 years to build a brand, 10 years ago it took 10 years. Today it takes 1 year to build a brand.

The cross-shareholdings between Russian DST, China's Tencent and South Africa's Naspers provide a great illustration of increasing capital flows across developing markets.

We are heading towards partisan, point of view and personality journalism. Big question for newsrooms today is how much personality can we tolerate? News organizations are grappling with this. The massive shift to partisan journalism is most accentuated in the US, far less in other countries.

Will we lose a shared platform where people can have a discussion? This can result in a skewed perspective. People are getting their information more than ever before from partisan journalists. The political candidates are only allowing supporters to interview them. Since Sarah Palin was interviewed by Katie Couric, she has only allowed interviews from aligned people.

Nicholas raised Chrystia's excellent article in Columbia Journalism Review on The rise of private news, which raises the distinction between business news and consumer news. Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters have excellent business models, and are looking for a news voice. Shifting this into consumer space, for example with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, can feed their core business model. Consumer news is looking to move into business news, which can be better monetized. New York Times with Dealbook and many others are seeking to do that.

Is social media changing what stories are run? Professional editors are looking to see what people are interested in, though still using their judgment to select what is important. There is now real-time feedback.

With the rise of social curation, people become their own editors. The question arises whether news organizations should still seek to cover all news, if everyone is using multiple sources. Should they specialize?

Jimmy Wales said that if you can do it in your pajamas then you won't be paid for it. Just as porn is being disrupted by citizen pornographers, journalism is being disrupted by bloggers. Something that is still valuable is the impartial journalist interviewing someone in a studio. Some bloggers are journalists, others are not. A hedge fund manager asked for his best news source, mentioned not a newspaper but Michael Petty, a blogger on China.

Some PR people seem to still want to control the discussion, perhaps through fear of the shift to open.

Huffington Post has been great at building a community, getting many people who want to comment, who feel engaged with the other readers. It allows people to build their own brand.

Submitted video is useful, but it needs a professional to build a narrative. Journalists want to do the storytelling - that is the fun stuff - but perhaps there is an oversupply of this. There is a huge effort to create big landscape stories, and it's not always worth it.