Posts Tagged: debuts

Tesla debuts an actual, mechanical prototype of its Optimus robot

It seems like just yesterday that Elon Musk ushered a gig worker in a spandex suit onto the Tesla AI Day 2021 stage and told us it was an robot — or at least probably would be one eventually. In the intervening 13 months, the company has apparently been hard at work, replacing the squishy bits from what crowd saw on stage with proper electronics and mechanizations. At this year's AI Day on Friday, Tesla unveiled the next iteration of its Optimus robotics platform and, well, at least there isn't still a person on the inside? 

tesla bot
Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk debuted the "first" Optimus (again, skinny guy in a leotard, not an actual machine) in August of last year and, true to his nature, proceeded to set out a series of increasingly incredible claims about the platform's future capabilities — just like how the Cybertruck will have unbreakable windows. As Musk explained at the time, the Optimus will operate an AI similar to the company's Autopilot system (the one that keeps chasing stationary ambulances) and be capable of working safely around humans without extensive prior training. 

Additionally, the Tesla Bot would understand complex verbal commands, Musk assured the assembled crowd, it would have "human-level hands," be able to both move at 5 MPH and carry up to 45 pounds despite standing under 6-feet tall and weighing 125 pounds. And, most incredibly, Tesla would have a working prototype for all of that by 2022, which brings us to today.

production  tesla bot
Tesla

Kicking off the event, CEO Elon Musk was joined almost immediately on stage by an early development platform prototype of the robot — the very first time one of the test units had walked unassisted by an umbilical tether. Lacking any exterior panelling to reveal the Tesla-designed actuators inside, the robot moved at a halting and ponderous pace, not unlike early Asimos and certainly a far cry from the deft acrobatics that Boston Robotics' Atlas exhibits.

Tesla Bot
Tesla

The Tesla team also rolled out a further developed, but still tethered iteration as well, pictured above. "it wasn't quite ready to walk," Musk said, "but I think we'll walk in a few weeks. We wanted to show you the robot that's actually really close to what is going to production." 

Tesla Bot
Tesla

"Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible," Musk said. "And we've also designed it using the same discipline that we use in designing the car, which is to say… to make the robot at an high volume at low cost with higher reliability." He estimates that they could cost under $ 20,000 when built at volume. 

The Optimus will be equipped with a 2.3 kWh battery pack which integrates the various power control systems into a single PCB. That should be sufficient to get the robot through a full day of work, per Tesla's engineering team which joined Musk on stage during the event. 

Tesla Bot
Tesla

"Humans are also pretty efficient at somethings but not so efficient at other times," Lizzie Miskovetz, a Senior Mechanical Design Engineer at Tesla, and a member of the engineering team explained. While humans can sustain themselves on small amounts of food, we cannot halt our metabolisms when not working. 

"On the robot platform, what we're going to do is we're going to minimize that. Idle power consumption, drop it as low as possible," she continued. The team also plans to strip as much complexity and mass as possible from the robot's arms and legs. "We're going to reduce our part count and our power consumption of every element possible. We're going to do things like reduce the sensing and the wiring at our extremities," Miskovetz said. 

Tesla Bot
Tesla

What's more, expensive and heavy materials will be swapped out with plastics that trade slight losses in stiffness with larger savings in weight. "We are carrying over most of our designing experience from the car to the robot,” Milan Kovac, Tesla's Director of Autopilot Software Engineering said. 

To enable the Optimus to move about in real world situations, "We want to leverage both the autopilot hardware and the software for the humanoid platform, but because it's different in requirements and inform factor," Miskovetz said. "It's going to do everything that a human brain does: processing vision data , making split-second decisions based on multiple sensory inputs and also communications," thanks to integrated Wi-Fi and cellular radios.

"The human hand has the ability to move at 300 degrees per second, as tens of thousands of tactile sensors. It has the ability to grasp and manipulate almost every object in our daily lives," Kovac said. "We were inspired by biology. [Optimus hands] have five fingers and opposable thumb. Our fingers are driven by metallic tendons that are both flexible and strong because the ability to complete wide aperture power grasps while also being optimized for precision, gripping of small, thin and delicate objects." 

Tesla Bot
Tesla

Each hand will offer 11 degrees of freedom derived from its six dedicated actuators, as well as "complex mechanisms that allow the hand to adapt to the objects being grasped." Kovac said. "We [also] have a non-backdrivable finger drive. This clutching mechanism allows us to hold and transport objects without having to turn on the hand motors."

"We're starting out having something that's usable," Kovac concluded, "but it's far from being useful. It's still a long and exciting road ahead of us." Tesla engineering plans to get the enclosed, production iteration up and walking around without a tether in the next few weeks, then begin exploring more real-world applications and tangible use cases the Optimus might wind up in. 

"After seeing what we've shown tonight," Kovac said. "I'm pretty sure we can get this done within the next few months or years and maybe make this product a reality and change the entire economy."

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Comcast debuts 2Gbps internet service in four states

After nearly two years of testing, Comcast is one step closer to offering multi-gig symmetrical speeds over cable. This week, the company began a new deployment that will allow more than 50 million US households to access its new 2Gbps service by the end of 2025. In a press release spotted by The Verge, Comcast said it would offer multi-gig internet packages in 34 cities across the country before the end of the year, with initial rollouts already underway in Augusta, Colorado Springs, Panama City Beach and Philadelphia.

Even if you don’t sign up for the new Gigabit 2x service, you’ll see an improvement in upload speeds. For instance, in Colorado Springs, Comcast says some tiers offer upload speeds up to 10 times faster than previously possible. The Gigabit 2x plan will initially limit customers to uploading files at 200Mbps. However, starting in 2023, multi-gig symmetrical speeds will be possible, thanks to a technology called DOCSIS 4.0.

Comcast has been transitioning to the standard for the past few years. Once that work is complete, it will have the network in place to offer 10Gbps download speeds and 6Gbps upload speeds on the same connection. In turn, that would allow it to provide symmetrical speeds across many of its cable packages. That’s an area where cable has historically lagged compared to fiber optic internet. 

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

‘Jetpack Joyride 2’ debuts as an Apple Arcade exclusive

It took more than a decade, but there's finally a sequel to Jetpack Joyride — if not for everyone. Halfbrick Studios has releasedJetpack Joyride 2 as an Apple Arcade exclusive for iPad, iPhone, Mac and Apple TV. Sorry, Android fans. The endless flier revolves around more "story-driven" gameplay with a new character to play (Betty Beefpies) as well as fresh mechanics and more detailed graphics. In that light, Halfbrick is effectively dragging the game into the modern era.

The original title came to Apple Arcade last year as Jetpack Joyride+, which maintains the core experience without the need (or ability) to make in-app purchases. The title first arrived in 2011 and helped define the endless runner category alongside classics like Canabalt and Temple Run. Halfbrick's signature game has racked up 500 million-plus downloads in the years since.

JJ2 probably won't justify the $ 50 per year ($ 5 per month) for Apple Arcade by itself, and it represents yet another dose of nostalgia on the all-you-can-play service. However, it might build a stronger case for a subscription. You can play simple blasts from the past alongside newer games that make the most of modern Apple devices.

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Paramount+ debuts in the UK and Ireland on June 22nd

ViacomCBS has finally narrowed the timing for some of its international Paramount+ launches. As Varietyreports, Paramount Global announced during an earnings call that the streaming service will arrive in the UK and Ireland on June 22nd. South Korea will also have access sometime in June. You'll have to wait a while longer in other parts of the world, however. Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland will can start watching in the second half of 2022, while people in India will have to wait until 2023.

In the UK, you'll pay £7 per month or £70 per year. Sky Cinema customers will have Paramount+ included at no extra charge.

The expansion will be welcome if you've wanted to watch Halo and other shows that have remained exclusive to Paramount+ so far. However, this won't thrill everyone. Until late last year, ViacomCBS made shows like Star Trek: Discovery available outside of Paramount+ coverage areas through rivals like Netflix. You'll now have to subscribe to yet another service to follow affected shows.

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Tesla debuts new car insurance that uses Texans’ real-time driving behavior

Tesla now offers car insurance in Texas, its new home state, a couple of years after launching the product in California. According to Electrek, though, the insurance available to Texans is quite different than the one owners can get in The Golden State: It calculates for a customer's insurance premium using their real-time driving behavior. Their credit, age and gender that are typically used by other insurance providers apparently don't matter to Tesla. The automaker says it won't even look at customers' claim history and driving records.

Instead, Tesla will look at their "safety scores," which is a feature it introduced with the Full Self-Driving Beta version released in September. That could make things quite tricky, since the premium that needs to be paid can change every month based on the conditions the driver encounters on the road. Every forced collision warning and forced Autopilot disengagement will affect their score. Following other vehicles from an unsafe distance, braking too hard and turning corners aggressively could lower their score, as well. Safety score is still a beta feature at this point, and Tesla said it should improve over time.

Owners can now apply for a quote, wherein which the automaker will assume a 90 safety score to start their policy. The price will depend on the client's performance after that, and it could be higher or lower than what a traditional provider charges. During Tesla's shareholder meeting, where its new home state was also revealed, Elon Musk said the company plans to upgrade its offering in California to be based on real-time driving behavior, as well. It's not allowed to implement the change just yet, but it's currently trying to ask permission from regulators.

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

After Math: Apple debuts devices running on its own silicon

The world tuned in on Tuesday to watch Apple CEO Tim Cook unveil the company’s latest technological advancement, the M1 chipset, as well as the brand new devices that will be running on it. But that was far from all the news from last week, here are…
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‘Apex Legends’ second season debuts July 2nd with an engineer character

There's finally some concrete details about the second season of Apex Legends, and it's heartening news if you're either a defensive player or particularly competitive. The next phase of the game will add Wattson, an engineer character who thrives o…
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Mark Zuckerberg debuts his own ‘Tech and Society’ podcast

Yes, you read that correctly. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has launched his own podcast, Tech & Society with Mark Zuckerberg, that has the company founder siting down with luminaries to chat about (what else?) the social impact of technology. The…
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Samsung’s 5G Galaxy S10 debuts in South Korea first on April 5th

Samsung's 5G phone will be available for sale in South Korea on April 5th. The launch of the S10 5G comes ahead of South Korea finalizing plans to become the first country to roll-out 5G nationwide. Samsung's phone will likely recruit an onslaught o…
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Netflix’s Fyre Festival documentary debuts January 18th

Fyre Festival was billed as "the cultural experience of the decade," but as we all know, it actually turned out to be a massive disaster that was far from the luxurious, celebrity-filled event it was advertised to be. A lot as gone down since it all…
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Netflix superhero show ‘The Umbrella Academy’ debuts February 15th

Netflix has finally taken the wraps off its adaptation of the Dark Horse comic The Umbrella Academy. The streaming service has posted a teaser trailer that both confirms the series' February 15th premiere date and offers a glimpse into its take on G…
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‘Papers, Please’ creator debuts ‘Return of the Obra Dinn’

Return of the Obra Dinn, the first-person mystery from Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope, is now available. The game has been in the works for some time, with Pope revealing the project and releasing an early demo back in 2014, and it features a rath…
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AT&T debuts their skinny Watch TV service to fend off Sling TV

When AT&T launched DirecTV Now it turned into one of the most compelling options for OTT streaming, if you wanted a ton of channels like a traditional cable package. It’s hard to argue with the massive lineup on DirecTV Now, but that means that its base package starts at just $ 35 per month, barring any discounts.  So […]

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Fighting classic ‘Tekken’ debuts on mobile

Fighting game Tekken is coming to your smartphone screens, joining the likes of Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, South Park and some Sega Genesis titles in the ring. Maker Bandai Namco announced the Tekken Mobile game is open for pre-registration…
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Neit debuts world’s first collapsible, hard case suitcase

Premium quality luggage brand Néit developed a line of suitcases that can be collapsed to nearly 70 percent its original size, making it convenient to store away when it’s not in use.

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