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Software is ‘the biggest bottleneck to robotics innovation’, says BlackBerry QNX report

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QNX, a division of BlackBerry, has released a new research study, the Inside the Robot: Architecture Benchmark Report, examining how robotics development is changing as systems become more software‑driven, AI‑enabled, and increasingly deployed alongside humans at work and in daily life.

Based on a survey of 1,000 developers from around the world, the research reveals the most significant inhibitors to progress, the gap between system ambitions and current capabilities, and developers’ views on the industry’s future.

A new episode of QNX’s Code the Future podcast featuring Omdia chief analyst Lian Jye Su explores the themes and results in more detail. [Read more…] about Software is ‘the biggest bottleneck to robotics innovation’, says BlackBerry QNX report

The power of the open-source community in robotics: Collaboration and shared innovation

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For decades, robotics was viewed as a niche engineering discipline inhabited largely by researchers, academics, and highly specialized industrial automation companies.

Development was expensive, fragmented, and slow. Even simple mobile robots often required years of work and highly customized software stacks.

Today, robotics sits at the center of one of the largest technology investment waves in modern industrial history. [Read more…] about The power of the open-source community in robotics: Collaboration and shared innovation

OLO Robotics completes commercial launch with three international manufacturing and distribution partnerships

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OLO Robotics has completed its commercial launch, announcing new manufacturing and distribution partnerships with Deep Robotics, inMotion Robotic, and Fiction Lab as robot companies move to make their hardware accessible to mainstream software teams, not only specialist roboticists.

By integrating OLO’s ROS2-native platform with quadrupeds and mobile robots, these partners are positioning robots as part of the existing software stack rather than separate, bespoke projects.

OLO provides an accessibility layer on top of ROS2, bringing the full robotics development environment into the browser, including cloud simulation, AI-assisted coding, visualisation and sim-to-real deployment. [Read more…] about OLO Robotics completes commercial launch with three international manufacturing and distribution partnerships

Opinion: Why industrial AI must be trained on physics, not prompts

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By Massimiliano Moruzzi, founder and CEO of Xaba.ai

Walk into any modern manufacturing facility and you’ll see the same tension playing out on the floor: incredibly capable machines, hemmed in by the assumption that everything will go exactly as planned. For decades, that assumption held well enough, but today it’s becoming a liability.

Manufacturers are under mounting pressure to produce faster, absorb more variability, and cut downtime, all while a new wave of AI promises to deliver “intelligence” without the complexity of traditional programming.

The pitch sounds compelling, but most of this AI is built on the same foundation as your company’s chatbot, and you cannot run a factory on prompts. [Read more…] about Opinion: Why industrial AI must be trained on physics, not prompts

Interview with Intrinsic’s Stefan Nusser: Traditional automation is ‘too expensive and too inflexible’

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For years, industrial automation followed a relatively stable formula: high-volume production, long product lifecycles, and robotic systems designed to repeat the same process millions of times with minimal variation.

That model helped transform industries such as automotive manufacturing, where fixed production lines and highly specialized robots delivered extraordinary efficiency at scale.

But manufacturing is changing. Product cycles are shorter, customization is increasing, and factories are under pressure to adapt more quickly to shifting demand and supply chain volatility. In many facilities, the traditional economics of automation no longer work as neatly as they once did. [Read more…] about Interview with Intrinsic’s Stefan Nusser: Traditional automation is ‘too expensive and too inflexible’

Comau partners with Omron to accelerate advanced industrial automation across high-growth manufacturing

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Comau and Omron Robotics have signed a strategic collaboration agreement aimed at accelerating the adoption and deployment of advanced industrial automation solutions for manufacturers worldwide.

The collaboration will focus on high-growth sectors including electronics, semiconductors, medical manufacturing and light industrial intralogistics – markets that continue to see strong demand for flexible, easily deployable automation.

The partnership responds to rising customer needs for scalable and adaptable automation solutions that integrate seamlessly into both existing production lines and next-generation manufacturing environments. [Read more…] about Comau partners with Omron to accelerate advanced industrial automation across high-growth manufacturing

Foxglove launches unified data platform to accelerate physical AI development

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Foxglove has launched “Data Search and Curation”, a new set of capabilities that helps robotics teams replace fragmented, manual data workflows with a unified platform to find and curate the mission-critical events, anomalies, and system behavior that matter most across growing volumes of operational data.

The company also expanded the Foxglove Data Platform with Bring Your Own Storage (BYOS), a new self-hosted data lake deployment model allowing customers to maintain full control over data at rest while still providing the benefits of a fully managed database, and a new free Basic Seat tier to expand access to visualization across teams.

As robotics companies scale from prototype to production, the critical path is shifting from generating more data to finding the most essential data quickly enough to debug issues, investigate failures, review safety-critical events, and improve system performance. [Read more…] about Foxglove launches unified data platform to accelerate physical AI development

Boston Dynamics integrates Google DeepMind’s Gemini Robotics model into Spot inspection platform

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Boston Dynamics has partnered with Google Cloud and Google DeepMind to integrate advanced artificial intelligence models into its industrial inspection platform, in a move the company says will significantly expand the capabilities of autonomous robots in real-world environments.

The collaboration brings Google’s Gemini and Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 into Boston Dynamics’ Orbit software, specifically its AI Visual Inspection (AIVI) and AIVI-Learning systems, which analyze images captured by the company’s Spot robot.

According to Boston Dynamics, the integration is designed to enable robots to move beyond basic detection tasks and instead perform more complex reasoning about their surroundings. [Read more…] about Boston Dynamics integrates Google DeepMind’s Gemini Robotics model into Spot inspection platform

PickNik releases MoveIt Pro 9 to improve AI-driven robotics in variable environments

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PickNik has released version 9 of its robotics development software MoveIt Pro, introducing new capabilities aimed at improving how robots operate in complex, real-world environments such as cleaning, sanitation and vehicle washing.

The update focuses on what the company describes as “scan-and-plan” workflows – a technique that allows robots to perceive their surroundings in real time and generate motion paths dynamically, rather than relying on fixed, pre-programmed instructions.

Industrial robots have traditionally performed best in structured environments, such as manufacturing lines, where tasks are repetitive and predictable. However, applications like restroom cleaning or food plant sanitation present a different challenge, requiring robots to adapt to changing layouts, irregular surfaces and variable geometries. [Read more…] about PickNik releases MoveIt Pro 9 to improve AI-driven robotics in variable environments

Qualcomm joins MassRobotics to support startup ecosystem and robotics development

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MassRobotics has announced that Qualcomm Technologies has joined its organization as a sponsor, expanding the network of companies supporting robotics startups within its ecosystem.

The addition of Qualcomm Technologies is expected to provide new technical resources and collaboration opportunities for startups working within the MassRobotics community, which focuses on accelerating the development and commercialization of robotics technologies.

The move comes as Qualcomm Technologies continues to expand its presence in robotics and edge AI. The company recently introduced the Qualcomm Dragonwing Robotics Hub, a developer-focused platform within the Arduino Project Hub that provides sample applications and a shared environment for building and scaling robotics systems. [Read more…] about Qualcomm joins MassRobotics to support startup ecosystem and robotics development

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