Sep 28 2015
Global sales of robotics products and hardware in 2013 increased 12% year over year, to $9.5 billion, according to the International Federation of Robotics. For the period of 2014-2017 the IFR forecast sales of service robots to increase to about 134,500 units with a value of $18.9 billion.
It is projected that sales of all types of robots could reach almost 23.9 million units in the period 2014-2017, with an estimated value of $6.5 billion as opportunistic companies focus on robotics industry with new products and acquisitions such as Great Rock Development Corp. (OTC: GROC), iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT), Accuray Incorporated (NASDAQ: ARAY), Goole Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT)
Great Rock Development Corp. (OTC: GROC) is pleased to announce the acquisition of Cyberworks Robotics Inc., a pioneer in the autonomous robotics industry. Cyberworks Robotics brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to Great Rock as it is an established leader in the Automation Industry and has the technological reach to target several vertical markets.
Read the full GROC Press Release at http://www.financialnewsmedia.com/profiles/groc.html
These include, but are not limited to, automation of the industrial cleaning and Wheel Chair markets. The industrial cleaning market alone is the largest prospective industry for deployment of fully autonomous robots and is an area in which we believe Cyberworks Robotics has a dominant position having created the world's first robotic cleaners that had international sales starting in the late 1980's. Additionally;
• In 1984 Cyberworks Robotics demonstrated the world's first autonomous robot which could navigate and work in unknown areas without any apriori teaching or map learning - it was the world's first truly autonomous mobile robot. • Cyberworks Robotics developed the world's first robotically assisted electric scooter for the disabled in 1991 with then industry leader Everest & Jennings.
In other Robotics/Technology Intelligence News and Happenings: iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT), the leader in delivering robotic technology-based solutions, last week announced the Roomba 980 vacuum cleaning robot - iRobot's most capable and best cleaning robotic vacuum to date. Roomba 980 is the first Roomba to combine adaptive navigation with visual localization, cloud connected app control, and increased cleaning power on carpets, helping people to keep cleaner floors throughout the entire home at the push of a button. "With more than 14 million robots in people's homes worldwide, iRobot is the global leader in automated home cleaning," said Colin Angle, chairman and chief executive officer of iRobot. "Roomba 980 is the next big step as it marks iRobot's first cloud connected product with mapping capabilities for the consumer market. Leveraging the cloud and mapping technologies, robots gain a better understanding of their environment, and customers are provided with more control. Looking ahead, these technologies will also enable expanded capabilities for connected robots in the smart home."
WinterGreen Research announces that it has published a new study Surgical Robots: Market Shares, Strategy, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2015 to 2021. The 2015 study has 553 pages, 216 tables and figures. Worldwide surgical robot markets are poised to achieve significant growth as next generation systems provide a way to improve traditional open surgery and decrease the number of ports needed for minimally invasive surgery. In the field of radiation oncology, the Accuray Incorporated (NASDAQ: ARAY) CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System is universally recognized as the premier radiosurgery system capable of delivering high doses of radiation with sub-millimeter accuracy anywhere in the body. As validated and proven in numerous peer-reviewed publications, the precision and accuracy of the system combines with continual image guidance and robotic mobility to deliver treatments characterized by high conformality and steep dose gradients. Read the full article at http://www.marketwatch.com/story/surgical-robot-market-2015-09-22 ARAY recently announced it has received a multi-system order from 21st Century Oncology for one CyberKnife® M6™ and four TomoHDA™ Systems.
Boston Dynamics, subsidiary of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has produced robotic creations-amid them is Spot, a robotic "dog" designed for traversing different types of terrain. This week, reports Ars Technica, the U.S. Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia took Spot out for a walk. The Marine base, home of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command brought in a team of engineers from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to test the bot in a variety of conditions. Spot, announced by Boston Dynamics earlier this year, weighs approximately 160 pounds (73kg) and was designed for scouting over rough terrain or inside buildings like a real military dog. "Spot is great and has exceeded the metrics that we've provided," Captain James Pineiro, head of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab's Quantico branch, told a Defense Media Activity reporter covering the tests.
The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence says it has built a machine that can solve geometry questions from the SAT about as well as an average American 11th-grade student. It's a bigger feat for a computer than you might imagine, and represents a major breakthrough in AI research by the Allen Institute, founded by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen. The system, called GeoS, gets about 49 percent of questions right, which extrapolates to about a 500, out of a possible 800, on the SAT's math test. That's pretty solid amongst its robot peers and was the average human score in 2015. Read the full article at http://www.geekwire.com/2015/paul-allens-team-of-ai-experts-just-aced-the-sats-with-a-robot/