Category Archives: Robotics

Remember the Harry Potter world, where kitchens used to make dinner by themselves; well, it is not an imagination anymore. Moley Robotics has brought in a game-changing revolution in the cooking industry, with its first-ever Robotic Kitchen that can automatically cook your food in no time. Moley cookware and utensils were designed together with a leading Italian appliances handicraft company. Key features of this set-up include ergonomic thermoresistant handles, mirror-polished stainless steel, an inner aluminum layer, and a magnetic outside stainless steel layer, which makes the cookware adaptive to any hob. Meanwhile, exceptional design makes the cookware worthy of being used at the table as well.

Moley Robotics was founded in 2014 by London-based computer scientist, robotics, and healthcare innovator Dr. Mark Oleynik, who has created the worlds first fully automated robotic kitchen unit. Moley Robotic Kitchen is a 3D cooking platform that allows the management of different cooking techniques (e.g., frying, steaming, boiling, baking, and adding ingredients on time to assemble the whole complicated dish from raw ingredients to achieve the highest quality result) and dish preparation stages in parallel and sequentially.

The need for RoboChef was identified in 2013 when Mark detected a gap in the current robotics market to radically change the volume of service, economics, and carbon footprint. Since then the company has had a long innovative journey from concept generation through system design, software, and hardware systems development to product launch in December 2020 during the only offline exhibition in Dubai.

Mark Oleynik, Ph.D., Founder/CEO/Interim CTO is an accomplished Ph.D. mathematician, computer scientist, and proven trailblazer. Mark has a truly exceptional vision for Moley Robotics. He has managed to patent robotic methods and manipulations in 12 countries and design patents and trademarks in 9 countries. He has invented a new system of robotic application not only in residential/commercial cooking environments but in other instrumental environments, where a system consisting of one and more integrated robotic arms can operate in all environments to complete multi-stage parallel and sequential process files.

Moley Robotics is solving the problems of households seeking higher standards of nutrition but having less time and willingness to cook. Restaurant delivery helps only partially, however, it does not keep the freshness and quality of the meal. People need an automated solution for cooking in their kitchen. At the same time, restaurants and other commercial kitchens struggle from staff turnover, increasing labor cost and human mistakes as well as increasing hygiene kitchen standards. Commercial kitchens need an automated solution for cooking and replacing part of human labor. There are many institutions and locations where top-quality chefs wont work: hospitals, night shifts/breakfast service in hotels, senior houses, penitentiary, dark kitchens. The company has joined partnership with SCHUNK and Universal Robots.

The main challenge through the journey of Moley Robotics is price optimization. According to Mark, the robotics market is high-margin and low-volume, and there are no applications that are currently implemented into the mass market. The companys strategy is to gradually increase the range of products that it develops, which will allow them to decrease the price and enter the mass market, cascading from the highest price segment to medium into low through the pyramid of demand.

Moley Robotics won the Best of the Best award during CES Asia in 2015. It has the strongest and oldest patent portfolio from 2014 with 8 granted patents as well as the first and only robotic kitchen in the world to be able to cook a whole dish from fresh ingredients. It is famous for its unique robotic hand developed and produced with SCHUNK, the world-leading robotic manufacturer. It has a cloud-based library of robotic recipes from world-class chefs along with the high-end design of the residential version. Moley Robotics integrated multiple recipe types and variations capabilities in one machine.

Moley Robotics has finalized the platform integration into residential kitchens, which allows the creation of a wide functional map of the integrated kitchen, meeting the household requirements. The next stage is to increase the kitchen system performance and reliability, which will allow it to be used in commercial applications, where high productivity of food preparation based on the renowned chefs various recipes is required. In the future, the company plans to integrate the platform into other environments: laboratory application, biotech, chemical, highly hazardous environment, medical, etc.

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Moley Robotics: Innovating the Future of Cooking - Analytics Insight

Jul. 14Cobb Schools Superintendent Chris Ragsdale will unveil plans on Thursday for the first phase of $160 million in federal money to come to the school district.

While Ragsdale said specific categories where money will be used will be presented during the meeting, the superintendent previously told the MDJ about 20% of the $160 million from the American Rescue Plan must be used to combat learning loss from extended online learning during the pandemic.

He said Thursday's discussion will focus on what he called the "first phase" of the money, the $104 million. He declined to give more details until his presentation to the board.

The school board is also expected to consider construction contracts for a $13.1 million performing arts center at Osborne High School and a $300,000 robotics lab at Walton High School.

Both projects would be paid for under the current cycle of the county's 1% sales tax for education.

The Osborne High School Performing Arts Center is expected to be complete in July 2022, according to the board's agenda item listing the contract with Carroll Daniel Construction of Gainesville.

The new 23,731-square-foot theater will seat 750 people, including a stage and associated support spaces, according to district officials. The project also covers the renovation of the existing 5,530-square-foot auditorium into a "black box theater" and two additional instructional units.

Osborne High School's main school building recently received a rebuild. The new, four-story $30 million Osborne opened its doors in August. The Osborne campus's rebuild is being completed in phases, said Ragsdale, and construction has now moved into the performing arts center phase.

Walton's $307,007 robotics lab would be built by Prime Contractors, Inc., of Powder Springs, and is expected to be complete in November, according to the school district.

That project, Ragsdale said, will give the robotics team at the high school its home back.

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"That is a new building. They were currently using, I believe, the old East Cobb Middle, because they had to relocate during the construction phase of Walton," he said. "So this will prepare them and provide them a place on campus."

The project covers the renovation of the existing 7,579-square-foot practice gymnasium into the robotics lab, inclusive of a practice field and associated shop areas.

Ragsdale said both the Osborne and Walton projects are "a great example of how Ed-SPLOST provides so much for our district."

In other business, the board is expected to consider:

An $887,050 track resurfacing at McEachern High School, to be paid for with money from the McEachern Endowment Fund;

A resolution calling for a special election on Nov. 2 to be held for a 1% special sales tax for education (Ed-SPLOST VI) that would begin collections in January 2024;

A contract with the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration for Ed-SPLOST VI election services. The district would pay for the costs attributed to its Ed-SPLOST election, which the agenda lists as "to be determined";

Adopting a resolution establishing the same millage rate as last year, at 18.9 mills. The adoption of that millage would increase the district's property tax revenues by about $32.2 million over last fiscal year.

Follow Thomas Hartwell on Twitter at twitter.com/MDJThomas.

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Federal money plans, Osborne theater, Walton robotics lab up for consideration Thursday - Yahoo News

CARRARA, Italy For centuries, the massive marble quarries above the Tuscan town of Carrara have yielded the raw material for the polished masterpieces of Italian sculptors like Michelangelo, Canova, Bernini and, most recently, ABB2.

Carving with pinpoint precision, and at least some of the artistic flair of its more celebrated (and human) predecessors, ABB2, a 13-foot, zinc-alloy robotic arm, extended its spinning wrist and diamond-coated finger toward a gleaming piece of white marble.

Slowly and steadily, ABB2 milled the slab of stone, leaving the contours of soft cabbage leaves for a sculpture designed and commissioned by a renowned American artist.

ABB2 is hardly a lone robotic genius, toiling away in anthropomorphic solitude. Just a few meters away, in a facility humming with robots, Quantek2 was rubbing away on another marble block, executing a statue envisioned by a British artist who had contracted out the manual labor to a robotic hand.

Since at least the Renaissance, the creative output of Italys artistic workshops has been among the countrys best-known and most valued exports. The founders and employees of this robotics lab believe that embracing advanced technology is the only way to ensure the country stays at the artistic forefront.

We dont need another Michelangelo, said Michele Basaldella, 38, a technician who calls himself the robots brain. We already had one.

One thing that hasnt changed in hundreds of years is artists sensitivity about who gets credit for their work. In Florentine workshops, many artisans worked in obscurity, with a sculpture or painting created by many getting just one masters signature.

Now, it is Carraras robots who work anonymously. Many of the artists who employ them demand that their identities be kept secret.

Artists want to perpetuate this idea that they are still chiseling with a hammer, said Giacomo Massari, one of the founders of Robotor, the company that owns the sculpting robots. It makes me laugh.

Standing amid the quarry dust, and wearing sunglasses to block the glare bouncing off the tons of marble transported down from the nearby Apennine Mountains, Mr. Massari, 37, argued that abandoning traditional handmade techniques was the only way to allow Italian marble sculpture to survive and thrive.

Carraras prosperity has long depended on the appeal of its marble to artists.

During the towns Renaissance boom years, Michelangelo roamed the surrounding quarries for weeks to find the perfect piece of marble for his Piet masterpiece.

In the 18th century, Carraras marble was transformed into scores of neo-Classical statues, and dozens of ateliers opened up here.

But among Modern and contemporary artists, Carraras marble fell out of favor, the translucent, gray-veined stone becoming more the stuff of bathroom floors, kitchen counters and funerary monuments.

Mr. Massari said that many artists had dismissed marble as a medium because of the months or even years it took to complete a single statue by hand.

And fewer young people in Carrara were up for the crushing work of chiseling stone, not to mention the dust-eating and all the other health risks that came with it. Canova is said to have deformed his sternum by bending his chest on a hammer for hours.

At a warehouse down the mountain, where technicians were testing a gigantic new robot, Mr. Massari pointed at a reproduction of Psyche Revived by Cupids Kiss, a masterpiece of neo-Classical sculpture. Canova took five years to make this, he said, we took 270 hours.

Mr. Massari and his partner initially bought their robots from local technology companies. But as clients including, among those who can be named, global stars like Jeff Koons, Zaha Hadid and Vanessa Beecroft gave them what Mr. Massari called increasingly crazy commissions, they started producing their own machines with homemade software and German parts.

Mr. Basaldella, the technician, said many of his former art school classmates were excellent sculptors but did not stand out, because manual dexterity is not new or in demand. But robots can achieve groundbreaking results if they are built with an artistic sensitivity, he said, sitting in a control room where he inspected a 3-D marble block scanned into his computer.

I think our robots are a work of art, he said.

He has even grown fond of some of his collaborators. He is doing everything he can to save one of the labs first, very tired models from the scrapyard.

OK, it doesnt talk, it does not have a soul, he said, but you get attached.

The robots are fast and precise, but not perfect. When one dug a deep crack from the forehead to the knee of a Sleeping Hermaphrodite reproduction for the American sculptor Barry X Ball, Mr. Basaldella almost fainted. The best-known version of this ancient sculpture sleeps at the Louvre on a marble mattress carved by Bernini.

While Mr. Basaldella cares enough about his robots that he started drawing up a horoscope for one, not everyone around Carrara shows the same level of empathy.

If Michelangelo saw the robots, he would tear out his hair, said Michele Monfroni, 49, in his workshop in the mountains near Carrara, where he sculpts Hercules reproductions, cherubs and the occasional police crest by hand. Robots are business, sculpture is passion.

Mr. Monfroni picked up his first hammer at 7 and virtually never put it down, refusing to employ machines, convinced that pulling a statue out of a marble block from scratch with ones hands is what defines sculpture.

Far from saving the countrys artistic legacy, he said, Italian art risks losing its international appeal if it drops its handmade tradition.

He approached a life-size marble portrait of a topless woman a present from the models husband for their poolside and started smoothing her cheek with a pumice stone. Sculpture is something you have inside, he said. If you use a robot, you also become a machine yourself.

Marco Ciampolini, an art historian and the director of a local museum, does not consider the use of robots a total break from the past, since many of historys greatest artists, including Michelangelo, delegated a big part of their work.

The idea of the artist working alone is a romantic concept created in the 19th century, he said. He added that while he welcomed technological advances that facilitate the sculptors job, he still thought a human touch was necessary to preserve artistic value.

Only a human knows when to stop, he said.

In the Robotor workshop, Mr. Massari said he didnt disagree with that assessment. The human touch, he said, represents just 1 percent of the work, but is essential.

In a nearby room, a dozen young, human sculptors were bent over some of the robots unfinished statues including one designed by the mischievous Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan refining the last details and fixing the inevitable imperfections left even by an intelligent machine.

The good thing about robots is that they cannot do everything, said Emanuele Soldati, 26, a former sculpture student, as he smoothed some details of a marble cabbage.

In three to four years they will be able to, replied a colleague, Lorenzo Perrucci, 23, as he traced holes in a marble sea sponge. And I will do something else. Maybe program a robot.

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We Dont Need Another Michelangelo: In Italy, Its Robots Turn to Sculpt - The New York Times

PITTSBURG, KS Pittsburg State University is giving kids the chance to hone their STEM skills for the next couple of weeks.

All part of the universitys annual Robotics and Construction Camp.

All classes are being held inside the Kansas Technology Center, and involve area kids between the ages of 9 and 14.

The two-week camp kicked off today.

We believe that the reason why students get so much out of this is because were using a basic system through LEGO that theyre able to grasp onto and yet were able to use it in a way that we can actually do what we like to call Edu-tainment or I like to call Learning Through Play. Says Norman Philipp, PSU College of Technology.

Each day consists of a morning session where the focus is robotics.

The kids then learn about construction during the afternoons.

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Pittsburg State University is hosting their annual Robotics and Construction Camp - KSNF/KODE - FourStatesHomepage.com

A series of online events during the summer and autumn will offer small businesses insight into how they could make use of robotics and automation.

Smart Hub Lanarkshire has announced a programme of free online events to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in different sectors explore the benefits of robotic technologies.

The programme begins on 28 July with an online event looking at the use of cobots collaborative robots in the food and drink sector.

Aimed at small food and drink businesses who are considering introducing automation, the event will be delivered by experts in the field of robotics, who will answer questions and help attendees make informed investment decisions.

They will also discuss the support that is available.

This will be followed by a similar event on 25 August , also looking at cobots, aimed at the life sciences sector, followed by a third event on 24 September for engineering and fabrication businesses.

Smart Hub Lanarkshire a newly opened centre dedicated to helping SMEs in the manufacturing sector grow and prepare for the future.

Run as a partnership between North Lanarkshire Council, New College Lanarkshire and the University of Strathclyde, it is home to a robotics and automation training facility and is a space for SMEs to access academic expertise and business support.

The hub opened virtually in April and aims to physically open its doors at New College Lanarkshires Motherwell campus later this year.

It was one of 12 projects to be awarded a share of 15.8m of funding from the Scottish Government through the Advancing Manufacturing Challenge Fund.

Professor Christopher Moore, principal at New College Lanarkshire, said: If you are considering introducing automated processes to your factory, and would welcome impartial industry insight and expertise to guide you, then these events will be invaluable.

As well as answers to technical questions, the panel will also be able to help you with queries about funding and finances.

Councillor Allan Graham, convener of the Enterprise and Growth Committee at North Lanarkshire Council, said: The events offer an excellent opportunity for local manufacturing SMEs to learn about the benefits of new robotics technologies.

As we start to recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Smart Hub Lanarkshire will provide support for manufacturing businesses to help them use these innovative technologies to develop and grow for the future.

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Smart Hub Lanarkshire offers small businesses insight into robotics and automation - Holyrood

Interoperability the ability of computer systems or programs to exchange information continues to enrich the robotic environment. Even though the term interoperability has been known in the industry for a while, there is a clear lack of industry-wide adoption of the practice when it comes to mobile robot fleets.

There are two main factors driving the need for interoperability -- the growing demand for mobile robots and their increasing specialisation.

The robotics industry has been booming for a while and will continue to do so for many years to come. In fact, the global robotics market is projected to reach $209.38 billion by 2025, growing at a 26% CAGR. Not only will this create many new opportunities, but a great number of challenges will arise too, especially with autonomous mobile robot (AMR) adoption increasing at a fast pace.

With this increasing demand for robots, automation is gaining a lot of popularity in warehouses around the world. In fact, the warehouse automation market is forecasted to reach a value of $30 billion in 2026 at a 10.41% CAGR during the forecast period. Thats double the value it had back in 2019.

With new technological advances, we can see higher levels of specializations of mobile robots. They are now being developed to serve more specific use cases. With robot sales hitting the roof, no manufacturer will be able to keep up with the demand. Instead, companies will need to deploy robots from multiple manufacturers in order to live up to their operational needs.

The result? Diverse robot fleets. We can already see many warehouses, logistic centers, hospitals and factories around the world deploying different types of robots that are often supplied by different manufacturers. For example, they will have a specific robot for lifting heavy items, another one for moving small items, one for security purposes, another for cleaning and so forth.

Heres where the real problem arises. Each manufacturer will supply its robot with its own operating system. This means that as soon as a robot is introduced to a fleet with robots from one or more other manufacturers, these robots will not be able to communicate with each other. Besides, as robots become more autonomous, they need to begin to communicate effectively to avoid collisions, delays in operations and other serious accidents on the work floor.

A case study found in Meili Robots recent report explores the pain points of interoperability.

As described in the case study, the project tested, adjusted and customized a fleet management solution for diverse mobile robot fleets at a Danish hospital. As expected, the main pain point turned out to be the inability of the robots own independent control systems to integrate into other systems these included both the logistics system of the hospital itself and the operating systems of other robots within the fleet.

It is very clear that there is a need for one universal fleet management system that can provide an overview and information including data analytics of the entire fleet, regardless of their type or brand. Moreover, it is crucial that third-party robots locations, routes, speed, etc. can be controlled in a levelled way. Not only will this help avoid collisions or other accidents on the work floor, but it also optimizes operational efficiency.

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Why the Need for Interoperability Will Shake Up Robotics Industry - Supply and Demand Chain Executive

Robotics researchers from NVIDIA and the University of Southern California (USC) announced today the first differentiable simulator for robotic cutting, or DiSECt for short. This new simulator can predict forces that will act on the knife as it pushes and slices through soft materials like fruits and vegetables.

Your first reaction might be, why do they need all that simulator science when you can just install a sharp blade on a robotic arm and smash it down? Thats certainly one solution, but part of the reason robot researchers like NVIDIA, and Sony and Panasonic all work with food is because food is oddly-shaped, has different textures and is delicate. If a robot can successfully work with soft objects like food, it can carry those techniques over to other applications like surgery (where plunging knives down is frowned upon).

Cutting through food with precision and care is actually quite complex. It requires feedback, adaptation, motion control and parameter setting as the knife makes its way through the object. Additionally, since each piece of fruit or vegetable is unique, the robot needs to adjust its cutting with each new object.

NVIDIA shared with us an advanced look at an article explaining the DiSECt research that was recently presented at 2021 Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS)conference. Im not going to lie, it is dense and jargon heavy with paragraphs like this:

DiSECt implements the commonly used Finite Element Method (FEM) to simulate deformable materials, such as foodstuffs. The object to be cut is represented by a 3D mesh which consists of tetrahedral elements. Along the cutting surface we slice the mesh following the Virtual Node Algorithm [4]. This algorithm duplicates the mesh elements that intersect the cutting surface, and adds additional, so-called virtual vertices on the edges where these elements are cut. The virtual nodes add extra degrees of freedom to accurately simulate the contact dynamics of the knife when it presses and slices through the mesh.

But rather than focusing on the specifics of the research, there are some broader takeaways anyone in food tech can appreciate. First, DiSECt illustrates the continued importance of simulation and synthetic data in training robots. NVIDIA has actually built a kitchen as a training ground for its robots where it uses synthetic data and computerized simulation to virtually teach a robot tasks like identifying and picking up a box of Cheeze-Its. Similarly, DiSECt trains a robot to use a knife through simulation first, which can then be applied to the cutting object in the real world.

Additionally, giving robots added abilities will make them more useful in taking over dangerous tasks like repetitive cutting. Right now, robots in restaurants are frying foods and even making pizzas, but they arent doing more highly skilled, precision tasks such as cutting and slicing. A robot cant get injured while cutting and could bring more safety to restaurant kitchens.

The good news for those interested in this type of cutting-edge research is that NVIDIA and USC are not the only companies doing work in this field. In 2019, researchers from Iowa State University published a similar paper on the intricacies of robot slicing.

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Researchers Create Simulator to Help Robots Wield Knives - The Spoon

A robot is a machine that is programmed by a computer. It is capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically without human intervention. A robot can be directed by an external control device, or the control may be inserted within it. Robots are created to stimulate the human form. Most robots are task-performing machines, designed focusing on sharp functionality, rather than expressive aesthetics.

Since the covid-19 pandemic, the world has changed entirely. The entire globe has become dependent on technology so as to stay connected and get the work done more than ever before. Robots have evolved as a safer option as social distancing has become the norm. Robots have become an essential part of everyday life.

Robots are not a mechanical body which is unachievable, rather it is a computer-based artificial brain that is still well below the level of elegance needed to build a human-like robot.

ING, the banks robotics team in Poland has launched a service called SAIO, which is an AI-powered solution that enables companies whether small or medium-sized to robotize their business. SAIO can be used to mechanize financial processes and also, it can be put into work in other areas of a company like HR, logistics where the administration is needed.

Since Covid-19 it has become more important to clean rooms and with social distance, one has to do the cleaning work by oneself. But some robots are being used to clean and disinfect homes and hospitals. To kill all types of viruses and bacteria, companies like UVD Robots, Xenex, Tru-D, Puro Lighting, and Surface are using ultraviolet-C light. In New York Puros UV lamps are being used to clean subway cars and buses. In India, Milagrow introduced three new robots, Milagrow iMap Max, Milagrow iMap 10.0, and Milagrow Seagull to clean homes with a touch of a button. These robotics mops not only clean the house but can clean themselves too. Further, some robots have arms that can pick up items, open drawers, move objects, and even open and close doors without any physical contact and also, sanitize the room with UV light and chemical hydrogen peroxide spray.

This is something that is completely different. Already software bots have existed for many years which have the ability to automate repetitive, algorithm-based computer tasks by simply imitating the way humans work with applications. But now comes something smarter, a robot that can read. ING has been developing a smart robot which is an intelligent content service. Such robots have been trained to recognize information in a document like an invoice or payslip and this is done by using AI algorithms. This simplifies the work of the customers as well as the service provider. Also, it is not just a document it can read, rather photos, chats, and other content can be processed automatically in this way.

With digital transformation taking place rapidly, now there are technologies that are surprising. There are robots that cook. It can flip a burger, make a cup of coffee, etc. In India, Rebel Foods uses a fusion of software, robotics, and automation to prepare food. It uses robotics-led smart friers which identify the shape of the food and based on that shape can regulate the oil temperature automatically without human intervention. The company also uses a Visual AIQC Machine, called a SWAT machine which stands for Size, Weight, Appearance, and Temperature. Every dish prepared is put on a machine that scans it and accepts or rejects it accordingly. Also, some robots can make burgers while the staff is busy taking orders online or cleaning their restaurants.

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Advancement In Artificial Intelligence: Rise of the Robots - Analytics Insight

WORX Landroid M, WR147

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (PRWEB) July 14, 2021

Its 2021 and time to think outside the box when it comes to mowing the lawn. New WORX Landroid robotic mowers enable homeowners to maximize their free time by turning mowing chores over to robotics that get the job done quietly and efficiently without supervision.

Skip the lawn care service and invest instead in a maintenance-free, environmentally friendly robotic mower. Whether the lawn is 1/8 acre (5,445 sq. ft.), acre, (typical suburban lot size) or acre, theres a Landroid designed to make the job easier.

Three new WORX Landroid robotic mowers include for mowing 1/8 acre (WR165), Landroid M (WR147) for acre lawns and Landroid L (WR155) for lots up to acre. These smart, streamlined machines are programmable to cut lawns in any day or time combination for an entire season using Landroids smart phone app, or directly through the mowers LCD screen interface.

The new robotic mowers feature a floating blade system that automatically adjusts its cutting clearance height if it encounters an obstruction in its path, such as a rock, stick or other object. The floating blade system provides continuous cutting action as it navigates the lawn. Each Landroid mower also features a waterproof base, allowing homeowner to rinse off its underside with a garden nose to remove grass, dirt or debris buildup. Also, new this season is the inclusion of Bluetooth connectivity in addition to Wi-Fi to ensure a seamless set up and connection process through Landroids app.

With the Landroid, you dont have to be home to mow the lawn. From the grocery store, to attending an arts and crafts fair, in your favorite coffee shop, or in a remote location, communication with Landroid is easily managed through its smart phone app.

The WORX Landroids have brushless motors and are powered by the WORX 20V Power Share battery. The (WR165) uses the 20V 2.0Ah battery; Landroid M (WR147) incorporates the 20V 4.0Ah battery, while Landroid L (WR155) is powered by the 20V, 6.0Ah battery. Charging time for the WORX 20V, 2.0AH and 4.0Ah batteries is 75 minutes, while the 20V, 6.0Ah battery is 115 minutes. The Max lithium-ion batteries are compatible more than 35 WORX lawn and garden and DIY tools and lifestyle products for cost savings and convenience.

Landroid M and Landroid L have four wheels for traction and maneuverability. The Landroids also feature a dial with six position height adjustment from 1.5 to 3.6 in. androids also feature Cut to Edge, which offsets micro cutting blades on the side to minimize the need for follow-up trimming.

Unlike conventional lawnmowers, Landroids dont use a grass catcher. The tiny clippings mulch back into the lawn acting like fertilizer for a vibrant, healthy lawn. And when its time to recharge its batteries, Landroid automatically returns to its charging station to recharge. Once fully charged, it continues mowing where it left off. Landroids even know when its time to come in from the rain. Landroid even knows when its raining. With a built-in weather sensor, the robotic mower will return home or delay mowing to avoid damaging the lawn by mowing wet grass.

The Landroids patented AIA (Artificial Intelligence Algorithm) technology gives the Landroid problem-solving capabilities that allow it to cut the lawn more efficiently and to better navigate through narrow passageways compared to other robotic mowers. It can navigate up slopes and inclines of 20 (35 percent).

No two lawns are exactly alike, so homeowners can customize Landroid with optional plug in module accessories to expand its capabilities, such as an the Anti-Collision System (ACS, WA0860, $259.99), which enables Landroid to sense and avoid obstructions in the yard; GPS tracking/cellular connectivity through Find My Landroid (WA0866, $299.99).The Radio Link module (WA0867, $199.99) extends Wi-Fi connectivity an additional 500 yards. It presents a stronger signal when there are interference areas in the yard such as trees, shed, garage or gazebo. A Landroid Garage (WA0810, $159.99) is also available to keep the Landroid out of the elements. This structure is much like a car port, serving as a barrier to keep out rain and a hot sun.

Landroid is immediately ready after installation with preprogramed settings. Users have the option to customize those settings via the Landroid app. The Landroid app has a variety of functions that let homeowners program, monitor and troubleshoot the mower. A newer feature is the lawn size calculator. By walking the lawns perimeter with the Landroid app, it automatically calculates the size of the yard and configures a working schedule for the mower. Updates to the Landlords firmware can be uploaded automatically via Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity.

Other key features include multi-zone programming, which allows users to set up separate lawn-cutting zones, such as front and back yards, tiered locations and berms. Also, homeowners can set up a four digit pin number to lock the Landroid for security purposes. In the event the mower is stolen, only the correct pin number will enable the mower to re-start.

Built-in safety sensors stop the Landroid blades when its lifted or tipped. The sensors will ensure Landroid turns off or turns around when it encounters a person, pet or object.

In addition to the Landroid mower, one 20V batteries and charger, lawn screws, boundary wire, stakes, hex key, two measurement gauges, two wire connectors and nine replacement blades and eight lawn screws are included for securing the charging station. The Landroid mowers are covered by the WORX three-year limited warranty.

The WORX Landroid 1/8 acre model (WR165, $949.99); WORX Landroid M (WR147, $1,099.99) and WORX Landroid L (WR155, $1,399.99) are available at worx.com and Amazon.WORX Landroid Accessory Video Links

Anti-Collision System ACS

Garage Accessory

Radio Link Accessory Reach out to WORX social media links, including Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worxus?ref=hl; Twitter: https://twitter.com/WORXTools; Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/worxtools and Instagram: @WORXTools

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New WORX Landroid Robotic Mowers Are For Busy Homeowners Who Value Their Time Off - PR Web

Does this count as an act of God?

That's the question legal teams everywhere were asking when Covid hit the US last March. Clients wanted to search out force majeure clauses in thousands of real estate agreements and other contracts, wondering if a pandemic could render them null and void. Not only were there more docs to review than usual, but also lawyers had to find quick answers to critical, unprecedented issues...all while working from home.

The 100-person team at Luminance, a UK-based AI-for-legal startup, felt like they were at the center of it all.

Founded by University of Cambridge mathematicians in 2015, the company specializes in automated legal doc review and analysis. Although the tech lends itself to a range of legal specialties, Luminance's business largely came from M&A due diligence work in its first four years. All of that changed in 2020, when M&A activity fell sharply and law firms scrambled to use the tech for new tasks in more than 30 different specialties, including property portfolio analysis, contract negotiations, compliance, litigation, and investigationsin order to save money. Overall, business spiked 40% in 2020.

What happened at Luminance is an illustration of a broader shift toward the automation of corporate legal department work. And experts say whats happening in the legal industry is indicative of the direction many knowledge work industries will go. Automation is often tied to conversations about manufacturing and wage work, but knowledge work automation is no myth.

Whether its the white collar worker or...the laborer, everyones going to go through this, what I call automation journey, whether they like it or not, Suneet Dua, US chief product officer at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), said. The automation train around RPA, robotics, workflows is moving so fastand theres low-code, no-code automation. That train is like a speed train. [The] human-skills train is the slowest train out there.

Stanford University research found that, after cross-referencing more than 16,000 AI-related patents and 800 job descriptions, knowledge sectors with highly-paid, well-educated workers may be more susceptible to automation than blue-collar jobs. For example, workers who completed a bachelors degree would be exposed to AI at least 5x more than workers with only a high school diploma. For evidence, look no further than the growth of robotic process automation (RPA), which uses neural networks, computer vision, and more to automate rote tasks. UiPath, a leading RPA startup, grew 10x between 2018 and 2021, thanks in part to clients ranging from Google to Equifax.

In the legal sector, the first stage of automation was centered on the logistics of managing massive amounts of physical documents and data, like converting them into digital files. Now, due to advancement in automation tools and user experience, were entering a new stage of automation.

Now, were moving into an environment where unstructured data can be captured and more complex decision-making can be supported through automation, says Chris Audet, a senior research director at Gartner, who researches in-house legal teams.

Several companies, like Luminance, are tackling this with machine learning (ML) models. For example, Luminance's product is a blend of supervised and unsupervised MLmeaning the model undergoes some training but also uses a learn-as-you-go approach, for finding unknown unknowns, Luke Taylor, a subject matter expert for the company, said. Its clients include one-fifth of the worlds largest law firms and all Big Four accounting firms: PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and Ernst & Young (EY).

The supervised ML part works like this: When a lawyer interacts with one part of the contract (say, a problematic clause) the model can apply that interaction across the entire document pool (e.g., flagging any similar clauses for additional review). The unsupervised ML component, on the other hand, is all about independent pattern recognition. Without learning from a lawyer or using predefined terms, the model can analyze a vast set of documents, find the standards and deviations, and flag anomalies for a lawyers eye.

The product is also meant to be ready right out of the box: After about an hour of setup, Taylor said, a legal team can start analyzing documents for language patterns with no coding or configuration.

This leap forward in tech prowess, and other industries widespread adoption of automation, has made legal teams move from a passive to an active stance regarding AI tools, according to Audet.

[In] the past, automation, AI, advanced analytics were voyeuristic. That was their attitude toward it: Im kind of curious about it, I want to see how other teams maybe use it and I can evaluate it, says Audet. Thats not the case anymore.

Audet said 2020 was an inflection point: Legal teams lost staff, either through business contractions or attrition, and to help offset those losses, some earmarked leftover budget dollars for automation solutions.

Everyone was waiting for the first mover to make a move, and no one wasand now, were in a place where everyone is playing a bit of catch-up, says Audet. Covid kind of hit the reset button for folks, and what was [merely] of interest before now is actually seen as a core way, and a smart way, to get work done. So theyre asking questions like: Help me build the business case for this? Show me what ROI looks like? Where has this been done successfully across workflows?

According to Audet, in-house legal teams tend to see automation as an opportunity to save cognitive capacity for critical thinking, rather than use up their processing power on high-volume, low-stakes decisions.

Audet added: For decades, in-house legal teams have been bombarded by business requests that are not high-value...All of that has led them to feel like theyre drinking from a firehose, in managing that volume. ...People are already facing burnout, let alone lawyers [who] are told to review contracts for 75, 80 hours a week.

Taylor echoed the burnout issue, especially for junior lawyers.

One of the reasons why I didn't go into a law firm, in the end, is because I was very dissuaded by that grunt work, Taylor said. When you are a trainee going through this...and youre training up to become a lawyer, and youre looking at just the same contracts over again, it's not really helping you too much.

Besides saving cognitive capacity, for some legal teams the tech also offers a way to take on moreand often higher-valuework. In Luminances case, two global law firm clients working on large document reviews used automation tech instead of temporarily pulling other teams off their current projects. One was able to speed up the review time for 190,000 German employment contracts from 30 weeks to just two.

You won't hear many lawyers say, I think my jobs going to go away, Audet said. In fact, I havent spoken to a single one of them who feels that way. They actually are looking forward to this as a way to focus on the things that they believe theyre actually getting paid for.

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How lawyers embraced the robots - Morning Brew