Archives for October 30, 2016

Connecting to the cloud is improving manufacturing, says Plex

October 30, 2016 by Mark Allinson

Plex Systems, a provider of cloud enterprise resource planning software for manufacturing, says its annual survey examining the use of technology by leading manufacturers shows that increasing levels of connectivity is leading to dramatic improvements.

The 2016 Plex State of Manufacturing Technology study provides real-world insight from nearly 200 manufacturing organizations that are using technology today to meet the demands of customers, drive product innovation and improve operational efficiency.

Among the key findings, Plex found was that “cloud technology improves manufacturers’ ability to manage changing business needs”.

With the cloud, manufacturers connect the plant floor with the top floor, providing everyone access to one version of real-time data. [Read more…] about Connecting to the cloud is improving manufacturing, says Plex

Board leader: 10 million Raspberry Pi units sold and new kit launched

October 30, 2016 by Mark Allinson

Raspberry Pi sold its 10 millionth unit last month, four years after its founders launched the tiny computer, expecting to sell only a few thousand.

Writing on the company’s blog, one of the founders, Eben Upton, says “imagine how strange it feels” to announce having sold 10 million, and that the figure has “beaten our wildest dreams by three orders of magnitude”.

Raspberry Pi was originally started to provide encourage to more people to join the Computer Science courses at Cambridge University, UK. [Read more…] about Board leader: 10 million Raspberry Pi units sold and new kit launched

All’s well that ROS well: Robot Operating System taking over the world

October 30, 2016 by Mark Allinson

If aliens from beyond our solar system or even our galaxy were to land on Earth and wanted to communicate with intelligent machines that can move around and shake hands, chances are that one of the first in line to greet our otherworldly visitors will be a robot with a brain built using the Robot Operating System.

The simple reason for this is that ROS is one of the most ubiquitous platforms for robotics in the world today, helped largely by the fact that it is an open-source project, in contrast to the majority of robot operating systems which are proprietary and closed.

Described as a collection of frameworks for robot software development, ROS was originally developed in 2007 at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. ROS was then extended by Willow Garage, and that’s when it really started taking off. [Read more…] about All’s well that ROS well: Robot Operating System taking over the world