Month: July 2017

Here it comes.  It is the biggest economic disruption since the World Wide Web was launched on the back of the developing internet in 1992.  Maybe bigger.  Autonomous transportation in all its forms: cars, trucks, industrial equipment, even trains and planes, will change the world in ways we can’t even comprehend.  McKinsey agrees: Self-driving cars […]

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One of the more impressive engineering feats of the past 25 years is the FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperature Spherical Telescope) in China.   According to Wikipedia:  “It has a novel design, using an active surface made of metal panels that can be tilted by a computer to help change the focus to different areas of the sky.[5] The cabin […]

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A recent Morgan Stanley study comes to a proactive conclusion.  The US left the Paris Accord, but will it even matter to the climate? The analysis in the study is a resounding NO! The point is dirty carbon-based fuels have already peaked in their cost-effectivness. That is true for both Oil and Coal, less so […]

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We talk a lot on this blog about the important global social and economic transition now underway.  It is very disruptive, and it has only just begun.  Over the coming years, many human jobs will become obsolete.  Policy makers need to be thinking about how we make this transition as a global society and have […]

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The hottest trend in dining today is the automated restaurant.  Every aspect of restaurant services are under review for updating and streamlining, mostly through automation.  The reason for this is the confluence of several current trends.  The trends are:  1. The reduction in cost of robots to do specific tasks.  2. The knowledge of robot […]

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Man has forever been interested in invention and creation.  The ultimate creator is he / she who created the Universe.  Are other universes possible?  Maybe.  Can man himself create a new universe from nothing?  Another Maybe, though one even less certain.  Walt Disney was a creator and inventor.  His most famous creation was Fantasia, which […]

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Some types of “artisan” bread, for example Italian bread loaves, are first proofed in an oven to cause the dough to rise and then are “scored” on top to create a split in the dough that when baked adds a pleasing crunchiness to the bread.  Scoring has been done by a baker with a knife, […]

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There have been several investor indexes created around the robotics market over the past 20 years.  I myself put together such an index in the 1990s which included Cognex, RVSI, Acuity, ABB, Fanuc, Adept and Yaskawa.  The problem with such indexes is the components were rarely a pure industrial robotics play (exception being Adept Technologies). […]

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