Today, Clearpath Robotics (best known for its rugged, ROS-friendly, and infallibly black and yellow robotic platforms) is announcing OTTO, a “heavy-load material transporter” that can carry a ton of stuff around warehouses, fully autonomously. Actually, “a ton of stuff” is underselling OTTO’s capabilities, since it can happily roll away with one metric ton and a half of payload: that’s a...

It's not just you – lots of people are struggling to make ends meet in America. And it's not just because of debt. The cost of living in America is remarkably high in many of its major cities, especially when compared to the median income of its citizens. This infographic takes the cost of groceries, housing, utilities, and more in cities across the 50 states and compares them to the national...

It has been roughly four decades since industrial robots—with mechanical arms that can be programmed to weld, paint, and pick up and place objects with monotonous regularity—first began to transform assembly lines in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. Yet walk the floor of any manufacturer, from metal shops to electronics factories, and you might be surprised by how many tasks are still performed by...

Boeing has patented a way of generating electricity from the noise of jet engines as they are opened up during takeoff.Jet engines are extraordinarily loud at roughly 140 decibels–and airports have struggled with mitigating their roar since the early days of commercial flight. An engineer at Boeing wants to make the cacophony more useful, if not silence it for good.For Boeing, patents seem lik...

While some retailers have been hurt by e-commerce, Nordstrom has leapt in. We looked at the retailer's partnerships, investments, and acquisitions.In 1998 Nordstrom launched Nordstrom.com in an effort to expand into the physical goods e-commerce space. Fast-forward 27 years and the high-end retailer has continued to innovate and invest in its e-commerce strategy through a variety of investments...

Apple is full speed ahead on designing its own electric car, with a ship date of 2019. That gives the company four years to convince Americans that electric cars are worthwhile. According to a recent Harris Poll survey, charted here by Statista, more than half of Americans are concerned about electric cars' price, range, repair costs, reliability, or performance.This is an unprecedented challen...

Designer Chris Onesto created a concept water company to comment on water usage in the drought-stricken state.Water is a precious resource, and nowhere is that more clear than in California, where a historic drought is affecting its population and its wildlife. Designer Chris Onesto wanted to drive home this point, and what he perceives as the ambivalence of some California residents, with his...

The news business is going through a revival—or at least enough people with deep pockets think so.Business Insider will be the next “new media” company to receive a hefty buyout offer from a wealthy benefactor, German publishing giant Axel Springer, reports Recode.If the purchase goes through at the reported price, it would value Business Insider, launched in 2009, at about $560 million. Tha...

Smartphones are too complicated for you? MP01 is coming for Christmas. This is a much simpler phone that doesn’t demand much from you, it focuses on what matters as a phone, nothing more. it’s a simple mobile phone for smart communicators. It’s perfect for anyone who doesn’t want to get distracted by social media notifications, games, and many different apps. This phone does mobile phone ba...