Pilot projects will send drones where no drones have gone before. (Aerix Photo)
The U.S. Department of Transportation has selected 10 state, local and tribal governments to oversee pilot projects that will go where no drones have gone before. But this time around, Amazon has been grounded.
The projects are meant to help set a course for ever-expanding drone operations over the next three years.
“Data gathered from these pilot projects will form the basis of a new regulatory framework to safely integrate drones into our national airspace,” Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said today in a news release.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos takes a stroll with a SpotMini robot dog. (Jeff Bezos via Twitter)
Amazon’s invitation-only conference on machine learning, automation, robotics and space exploration, also known as MARS, has become an annual tradition marked by billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos’ high-tech high jinks.
Our invitation must have gotten lost in the mail, but based on the tweetstream, the highlights so far include an Intel indoor drone formation fly-in, emceed by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich … a ping-pong-playing robot … a show-and-tell by Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck, featuring his company’s 3-D-printed Rutherford rocket engine and Humanity Star disco-ball satellite … a sound-converting vest … and an inspirational talk by actor Michael J. Fox.
The inventors behind the new patent, published today, may not be as well-known as Amazon’s billionaire CEO, but they’re notable: One is Gur Kimchi, the Amazon VP in charge of the drone delivery program at Prime Air. The other is Avi Bar-zeev, who’s been involved in projects ranging from Microsoft HoloLens to Google Earth. He left Amazon after the patent application was filed in 2015 and is now at Apple.
The system they describe features an airlift package protection airbag, or APP airbag, that would be wrapped around a package that’s due to go out on a drone for delivery.
This simplified version of a patent-application diagram shows robots checking a set of computer server racks. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)
Does something need checking out in your data center? Before you send out a technician, why not send out a robot?
That’s the upshot of a newly published Amazon patent for mobile robots that are designed to respond to the report of a glitch, check out the computer server that may be having an issue, hook into it if necessary and gather data for a fix.
The system, described in an application that was filed back in 2014, even calls for having the machine use its robotic manipulator to pull out a suspect part and install a replacement if need be.
There’s no sign that Amazon Web Services already has robotic IT workers on the job, servicing the hundreds of thousands of computer servers it has in data centers around the globe. Plenty of patents never get implemented, and Amazon didn’t immediately respond to GeekWire’s emailed inquiry about its intentions.
AUSTIN, Texas — Gray skies, cops on bikes, microbrews and transit turmoil: If Texas’ state capital gets picked as Amazon’s HQ2, Amazonians will find much that’s familiar, plus the scent of barbecue wafting through the air.
And they’ll find something they can’t yet get in Seattle: one-hour grocery delivery from Whole Foods, courtesy of Amazon Prime Now.
Sure, Prime Now can deliver the goods in Seattle, from PCC Community Markets, New Seasons Markets and other vendors. But Whole Foods isn’t on the list in Amazon’s hometown. Yet.
Austin, however, is one of four cities (also including Cincinnati, Dallas and Virginia Beach) where Amazon rolled out one-hour Whole Foods grocery delivery for Amazon Prime members this month. You can even get free delivery within two hours if you order at least $35 worth of groceries.
To try out the system, and to keep my stomach from growling during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Austin, I put together an online order in my hotel room.
A diagram shows how an ultrasonic wristband can track a warehouse worker’s position in relation to a given inventory bin. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)
Amazon has been issued a pair of patents for a wristband system that monitors whether warehouse workers are putting their hands in the right places.
The patents, published today, cover bracelets that could emit ultrasonic sound pulses or radio transmissions to let a receiver system get a fix on where the workers’ hands are, in relation to an array of inventory bins.
Amazon doesn’t typically comment on its patents, but if the technology makes economic sense, it could conceivably be picked up for use in the Seattle-based online retailer’s hundreds of fulfillment centers.
A diagram shows the configuration for an autonomous ground vehicle with two compartments. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)
Is a robotic retriever in your future?
Amazon thinks so: In a patent application published today, inventors working for the Seattle-based online retailer lay out a detailed plan for an autonomous ground vehicle that can roll out from someone’s home, pick up a package from a delivery truck and bring it to the right place.
The boxy robot depicted in the 2016 application looks a lot like the delivery robot that Starship Technologies has built for delivering meals on wheels. But the AGV’s intended function is more of a throwback to the 1950s idyll in which the family dog fetches the newspaper and lays it at its master’s slippered feet.
Kyle Mooney plays Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on “Saturday Night Live.” (NBC via YouTube)
By Alan Boyle and Todd Bishop
Amazon’s HQ2 search made it all the way to “Saturday Night Live” tonight, with a skit that depicts Jeff Bezos receiving delegates from cities in the company’s top 20 — assisted by Alexa, of course.
So who did NBC’s comedy writers pick as the final four for the Seattle-based online retailing giant’s second headquarters, with 50,000 high-paying jobs and $5 billion at stake?
Amazon is getting ready to expand the range of features available in third-party skills for its Alexa AI voice assistant. (Amazon via YouTube)
G’day, Alexa: Amazon’s digital voice assistant is getting an Australian accent for its Down Under debut this week, but there’s more in store for users around the world.
Thanks to SSML, or speech synthesis markup language, Alexa developers can already make an Amazon Echo or other voice-controlled device whisper, or speak faster or slower, or speak with a super-cheery voice. And Alexa’s users can change her speaking style to British English, or German, or Japanese.
Like Google’s AI assistant, Alexa can now associate voices with specific people: Users can follow the instructions in the Alexa mobile app to train devices so that they distinguish your voice from others.
Outside developers will be getting access to that feature, known as the Your Voice API. That means voice identification could soon be popping up in third-party skills, said Nikko Strom, a senior principal scientist at Amazon and founding member of the Alexa team.
An illustration shows how an apparel manufacturing machine could make use of fluorescent ink printing and ultraviolet light to guide a customized cutting process. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)
Amazon has taken one more conceptual step toward an integrated system that can size up fashion customers and sell them tailor-made clothing.
The latest advance comes in the form of a patent published today, describing a system that could use fluorescent inks as a guide for cutting fabric. The inks would be invisible under normal lighting, but when the fabric is illuminated with ultraviolet light, “the fluorescent reflection can be captured by image sensors to generate instructions to cut the panels out from the textile sheet.”
“The reflection can also be used as assembly notations for reference by sewing workers or automated sewing systems,” Amazon inventor Rouzbeh Safavi Aminpour says in the patent application, which was filed back in 2016.
Aminpour was in on a previously issued patent that lays out an assembly-line system of computer-controlled printers, cutters and sewing stations for producing on-demand apparel.
The beauty of the system is that the cutting guides and assembly instructions can be custom-printed on the fabric to reflect the eventual wearer’s size and fit. Other inks could be printed onto the fabric at the same time, to reflect the wearer’s desired color pattern for the fabric.
