AI & Robotics

This week we published our interview with Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter. We discussed his first year as CEO; the company’s profitability target after three decades (Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992); Spot, Pick, Handle, and Atlas; and the company’s broader roadmap, including which robots are next. The interview comes on the heels of Boston Dynamics opening sales for its quadruped robot…

A little over a year after the close of its previous funding round, AI gym equipment startup Tonal today nabbed a $110 million tranche from new and existing investors. A spokesperson says the capital will enable Tonal to accelerate its marketing efforts, scale its supply chain and logistics, and roll out software upgrades and new workout content. Shelter-in-place orders and office closures…

Yesterday evening, Baidu held a three-hour virtual keynote to kick off its Baidu World 2020 conference. In addition to voice-activated earbuds dubbed the Xiaodu Pods, the company showcased the newest generation of its natural language processing platform, DuerOS, and its PaddlePaddle machine learning development framework. PaddlePaddle and Baidu Brain The latest beta release of PaddlePaddle —…

Varada, a Tel Aviv startup offering “petabyte-scale” analytics for customers with data lakes, today nabbed $12 million as it prepares to launch its data virtualization solution in general availability. CEO Eran Vanounou said the funding will be used to support Varada’s beta program customers, who have unlimited access to the platform and all of its features. Data lakes — repositories that…