Co-founder @doubleTwist. Current project: Robotics Weekly. @Livermore_Lab alumni.
Austin, TX
Joined February 2009
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White House tonight: robot imports threaten national security. No tariffs yet. Commerce and USTR have 180 days to negotiate and report back. Tariffs, quotas or fees could follow on parts as well as finished robots. Humanoids and quadrupeds are named as defense-relevant.
It's amazing to see how far along dexterity is progressing in humanoids. The new Atlas hands are spinning golf balls and have 13 degress of freedom 👀
And no, you’re not hallucinating. Atlas has 4 fingers. @BostonDynamics says it keeps its dexterity and use of tools without a pinky. Skipping it saves three actuators plus the cost, bulk and breakage risk that come with them.
Humanoids took real steps toward factories this week, but nearly every date that matters now lands in 2027. Issue #4 of Robotics Weekly covers Tesla’s Optimus line, Agility’s Digit pilot at AGCO, OpenAI’s humanoid and $350M in new money for robot AI startups.
This week's featured company is @origin_autonomy. Its robots already finish drywall on live job sites, applying compound, sanding and priming walls up to 14 ft high. They came out of stealth Oct 15 with a $20M round co-led by @Accel and @ZacuaVentures.
Physical Intelligence opened a beta API so any robot team can fine-tune and run its models. Agility set a Nov 2 shareholder vote on its Nasdaq listing. ICON raised $200M in Austin. More in Issue #3 of AI & Robotics Weekly.
There's been a lot of marketing fluff and vapor demos in robotics, but @JasonMa2020's recent interview shows the industry is moving toward real deployments. @DynaRobotics
Those robodogs (probably Unitree Go2s) are from @getundaunted in Atlanta, running them as a patrol service. ~$3K/mo gets you two dogs plus 8 hrs/day of remote monitoring. My guess: teleoperated, not autonomous, with a human on the line to talk through the dog or call police.
🚨#BREAKING: Absolutely WILD footage has emerged from Atlanta where an apartment complex now uses "robot security dogs" to patrol the area at night.
The robot dogs also seem to speak in Indian accents to the residents.
I've never seen anything like this before... insane!!!
Robot patent race is absolutely bonkers. @Figure_robot 100 US patents in 18 months. @AgilityRobotics 46, @Apptronik 15, while @Tesla added 3 robot-related to their 600+ arsenal (US filings only)
Full breakdown by company (applications plus grants): robotics.farantzos.com/compa…
Issue #2 of my new AI & Humanoid Robotics Weekly is out: Ultra raised $62M for warehouse robots it leases by the month, RobCo passed a $1B valuation, and UBTECH and FAW-Volkswagen moved humanoid tests into car-plant logistics. 🤖
Read the full issue: robotics.farantzos.com/posts…
