Brian Heater, Author at TechCrunch

Robust AI’s Carter Pro robot is designed to work with, and be moved by, humans

Brian Heater — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Two things are immediately notable when watching the Carter Pro robot navigate the aisles of the demo warehouse inside Robust AI’s San Carlos, California, headquarters. The first is the shelving units: standardized, modular, and off-the-shelf. The wire frames will look familiar to anyone who has spent time in warehouses, and that’s certainly by design. The second […]

The best tech for plant lovers

Brian Heater — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

House plants are great. They can also be hard. All of those stress-reducing self-care qualities they promise tend to fade into the background when they suddenly turn brown for seemingly no reason. Unlike pets and human children, they can’t bug you when something is wrong. They just sort of wither. There’s a reason Reddit is […]

Best gifts for frequent travelers

Brian Heater — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 18:00:00 +0000

What’s the best gift you can get someone? Why, the gift of travel, of course. The next best is something to enhance the travel experience. As fun and enlightening as seeing new places is, the whole part of getting there can detract from the overall experience, especially for those who find themselves traveling a lot […]

Botinkit’s robot wants to cook for you

Brian Heater — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 17:00:00 +0000

Warehouses aren’t the only places grappling with a labor crunch. Since the start of the pandemic, restaurants around the world have been grappling with staffing shortages. A number of startups have entered the picture with automation solutions, aimed at reducing the number of hands required to keep the lights on and the food warm. There […]

Apple’s AI-powered Final Cut Pro 11 is now available

Brian Heater — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 23:00:00 +0000

It’s been 13 years since Apple released Final Cut X. That’s just over half of the video-editing software’s entire lifespan, having celebrated its 25th birthday this April. It’s several lifetimes in the world of consumer software, leading some to wonder whether the company had quietly washed its hands of the offering. After 13 years of […]

Wing begins delivering blood samples via drone in London

Brian Heater — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 19:26:23 +0000

Alphabet X spinoff Wing on Wednesday confirmed that it has started delivering blood samples via drone. The program, announced in September, is shuttling samples between London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals. Wing is running up to 10 deliveries a day, Monday through Friday. Each run can contain several different samples and takes around three minutes. […]

Ever wanted to rent a food delivery robot? Now you can.

Brian Heater — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 17:32:02 +0000

Good news for anyone who’s ever wanted to rent a delivery robot. Kiwibot this week announced a new “rent a robot” offering, making it possible for companies to use its army of autonomous delivery systems for a finite amount of time. The robot-as-a-service (RaaS) approach follows the startup’s recent acquisition of advertising firm Nickelytics: Using […]

Apple reportedly shipping a security camera in 2026

Brian Heater — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 18:42:01 +0000

Apple is set to expand its smart home presence, according to Ming-Chi Kuo. The well-sourced analyst reported on Tuesday that the iPhone maker is working on an IP (internet protocol) camera with an expected 2026 shipping date. The analyst notes that Chinese component maker, Goertek, is set to assemble the product, which Apple expects to […]

The best gadgets for new homeowners

Brian Heater — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 15:00:00 +0000

In August, I did something I never imagined myself doing: I bought a house. After spending most of my adult life in New York City, I moved a couple hours north to the Hudson Valley. It’s been every bit as major an adjustment as I’d expected. Along with your standard new homeowner surprises — like […]

Boox Palma 2: A great little e-reader with bigger ambitions

Brian Heater — Sat, 09 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

The Palma is a strange product. It’s a small e-reader with far bigger gadget ambitions. On its site, Boox describes the product as a “distraction-free device that lets you reclaim your focus in the exact middle between tech and life.” In a lot of ways, the company’s ambitions appear to mirror those of Light Phone’s by […]

These 60 robotics companies are hiring

Brian Heater — Sat, 09 Nov 2024 15:40:13 +0000

From the looks of things, companies in the category — including Agility Robotics and Formlogic — can’t hire quickly enough.

Apple 16-inch MacBook Pro (M4 Pro) review: A powerful desktop replacement

Brian Heater — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:05:51 +0000

On Monday, Bloomberg reported on Apple’s plans to fully overhaul its laptop line. That’s exactly the kind of rumor you don’t want to drop in the week between the announcement and launch of a new MacBook Pro. A deeper dive reveals that the planned revamp is coming at some point in 2026. It’s still very […]

iMac (M4) review: A mini upgrade to Apple’s entry-level all-in-one

Brian Heater — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:04:33 +0000

iMac is the rock of Apple’s desktop line. Over the past decade we’ve seen the iMac Pro come and go, Apple struggling to crack the Mac Pro, and largely forgetting the Mac Mini existed for more than a decade. With two years and two models under its belt, the jury is still out on the […]

Apple Mac Mini (M4) review: More power in a tiny package

Brian Heater — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:03:19 +0000

For years, the Mini was the odd man out in the Mac desktop lineup. Apple has given plenty of love to the iMac over the years. The Mac Pro has had a few false starts, but the company is clearly committed to offering a true professional-grade desktop experience. The Studio is the new kid on […]

Nvidia just became the world’s largest company amid AI boom

Brian Heater — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 23:18:10 +0000

Nvidia on Tuesday exceeded Apple’s market capitalization to become the world’s largest company, on the strength of a global AI push. As Bloomberg notes, the chipmaker has experienced an astronomical 850% growth since the tail end of 2022. Nvidia was valued at $3.43 trillion at the close of market, topping Apple’s $3.38 trillion. This isn’t […]

Amazon acknowledges screen issues on a ‘small number’ of Kindle Colorsoft units

Brian Heater — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 19:06:05 +0000

After more than a decade of waiting, Amazon’s first color Kindle has stumbled out of the gate. An issue with the new display has left Colorsoft buyers leaving unfavorable reviews. At last count, the e-reader is hovering around 2.7 stars. The company confirmed the display issues that are affecting a “small number” of units in […]

Built in four days, this $120 robot arm cleans a spill with help from GPT-4o

Brian Heater — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 16:36:32 +0000

Large language models have already proven transformative for robotics. While researchers and companies alike utilize the platforms to supercharge robotic learning, a pair of roboticists at UC Berkeley and ETH Zurich challenged themselves by leveraging generative AI to put a cheap robot arm to work. Jannik Grothusen and Kaspar Janssen trained a pair of $120 […]

MIT debuts a large language model-inspired method for teaching robots new skills

Brian Heater — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

MIT this week showcased a new model for training robots. Rather than the standard set of focused data used to teach robots new tasks, the method goes big, mimicking the massive troves of information used to train large language models (LLMs). The researchers note that imitation learning — in which the agent learns by following […]

Apple is buying photo-editing app Pixelmator

Brian Heater — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 17:05:48 +0000

Pixelmator announced on Friday that it is being acquired by Apple. The image-editing platform didn’t discuss what life might look like under the corporate umbrella but did note there would be “no material changes” to its Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps — at least for now. If Apple’s acquisition history is any […]

Oura buys Sparta Science, its third acquisition in 2 years

Brian Heater — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 20:10:53 +0000

Smart ring maker Oura on Thursday announced that it has acquired Sparta Science, a Bay Area-based health tracking startup. TechCrunch spoke to Sparta back in 2018 at the offices of Playground Global, a key investor. The deal marks Oura’s third acquisition in two years. The company purchased digital identity platform Proxy in May 2023. This […]