ITV

Tag: Robot

  • Amazon buys robot vacuum maker iRobot for $1.7 billion

    Amazon buys robot vacuum maker iRobot for $1.7 billion

    Mumbai: Amazon is all set to expand its collection of smart home appliances. It has announced plans to acquire the vacuum maker, iRobot, for approximately $1.7 billion.

    iRobot is famous for its list of smart home appliances, including the Roomba vacuum, the Astro robot, and the Ring security camera, among others.

    GlobalData Retail managing director Neil Saunders said, “The move is part of Amazon’s bid to own part of the home space through services and accelerate its growth beyond retail. A slew of home-cleaning robots adds to the company’s tech arsenal, making it more involved in consumers’ lives beyond static things like voice control. The latest line of Roombas use sensors to map—and remember—a home’s floor plan, offering a trove of data that Amazon could potentially integrate with its other products.”

    Amazon will acquire iRobot for $61 per share in an all-cash transaction, including iRobot’s net debt. The company has total current debt of approximately $332.1 million as of 2 July.

    This is not the first time that Amazon has made a move in this space. It has been aggressively tackling the robotics space in the decade since it acquired Kiva Systems. Last year, Amazon also unveiled the Astro Robot at an introductory price of $1,000.

    Speaking about this acquisition, Amazon Devices SVP Dave Limp said, “We know that saving time matters, and chores take precious time that can be better spent doing something that customers love.”

    He also added, “Over many years, the iRobot team has proven its ability to reinvent how people clean with products that are incredibly practical and inventive—from cleaning when and where customers want while avoiding common obstacles in the home, to automatically emptying the collection bin. Customers love iRobot products—and I’m excited to work with the iRobot team to invent ways that make customers’ lives easier and more enjoyable.”

    iRobot CEO Colin Angle commented, “Since we started iRobot, our team has been on a mission to create innovative, practical products that make customers’ lives easier, leading to inventions like the Roomba and iRobot OS.”

    “Amazon shares our passion for building thoughtful innovations that empower people to do more at home, and I cannot think of a better place for our team to continue our mission. I’m hugely excited to be a part of Amazon and to see what we can build together for customers in the years ahead,” he added.

    The deal is subject to approval by shareholders and regulators. Upon completion, iRobot’s CEO, Colin Angle, will remain in his position.

  • Samsung introduces latest innovations at Consumer Electronics Show 2021

    Samsung introduces latest innovations at Consumer Electronics Show 2021

    NEW DELHI: Samsung opened the Consumer Electronics Show 2021 with a crisp, 30-minute keynote, sharing its vision for the future and introducing a slew of new products at the virtual press conference. Among fresh launches is its new range of bespoke refrigerators that you can mix, match and combine into different configurations. Samsung has also launched its first MicroLED TV, which will be commercially available in a couple of months in a whopping, 110-inch avatar. 

    The South Korean electronics conglomerate also detailed its AI ecosystem and smart home software, as well as its sustainability efforts. Alongside the catchy demos of its smart home gizmos, two of Samsung's sustainability efforts caught the eye. The first is its shift to its DRAMs and SSDs in its data centres and servers, which can apparently make a 7TWh (Tera-Watt-hour) difference in energy consumption. The second is its proposed software updates to older Galaxy range of smartphones, which can turn them into specific use-case devices such as baby monitors or long-range remotes for appliances.

    Samsung Electronics president and head of Samsung Research Sebastian Seung said, “Our world looks different, and many of you have been faced with a new reality–one where, among other things, your home has taken on a greater significance. Our innovations are designed to provide more personal and more intuitive experiences that express your personality. We’re hard at work to bring you next-generation innovation, with AI as the core enabler, for your better tomorrow.”

    Here are a few highlights and launches at the Samsung event:

        Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex: The latest version of the Bespoke refrigerator features changeable panels that come with a choice of colours and materials that made the original a success, allowing consumers to adjust their fridge for form and function. The new four-door model will be available in North America this spring.

        110-inch MicroLED: This new screen features self-lit inorganic LED with a slim and nearly bezel-less Infinity Screen design that seamlessly blends into the living space. The result is a spectacularly immersive viewing experience with astounding picture quality. The 110-inch MicroLED also adds “4Vue” (Quad View), a four-way viewing option—so you can keep up with multiple sports at once, or stream a tutorial while playing a video game. Also, for US consumers, more than 160 free channels1 are available through Samsung TV Plus. MICRO LED will be rolled out globally beginning this spring.

        Lifestyle TV: Samsung’s cutting-edge lifestyle TV lineup includes The Serif, The Frame, The Sero and The Terrace—a recently launched 4K QLED outdoor TV—as well as Samsung The Premiere, a cinema-like quality 4K laser projector.

        SmartThings Cooking: A new service from Samsung SmartThings is designed to make your culinary journey seamless. An automatic Meal Planner powered by Whisk’s Food AI recommends meals for the whole week, makes shopping lists with the ingredients you need, and connects to grocery retailers for one-stop shopping straight from the Family Hub refrigerator or your mobile screen. Recipe instructions can be sent directly to synced Samsung cooking devices to minimize hassles and mistakes.

        Samsung Health Smart Trainer on Samsung 2021 TVs: Samsung Health seamlessly transforms the home into a personal gym, and the new Smart Trainer4 feature tracks and analyses posture in real time, just like a personal trainer. During and post-workout, Smart Trainer provides feedback on form, helps you count your reps, and estimates calories burned. Also includes video and interactive training via Bixby-enabled voice control.

         JetBot 90 AI+: Coming to the US 1H 2021, this new vacuum cleaner uses object recognition technology to identify and classify objects to decide the best cleaning path. LiDAR and 3D sensors allow JetBot 90 AI+ to avoid cables and small objects, while still cleaning hard-to-reach corners in your home. Also outfitted with a camera, JetBot 90 AI+ is integrated with the SmartThings app to assist you with home monitoring.

        Samsung Bot Care: Designed to use AI to recognise and respond to your behaviour. It will be able to act as both a robotic assistant and companion, helping to take care of the details in your life. It will also learn your schedule and habits and send you reminders to help guide you throughout your busy day.

        Samsung Bot Handy: Will rely on advanced AI to recognize and pick up objects of varying sizes, shapes and weights, becoming an extension of you and helping you with work around the house. Samsung Bot Handy will be able to tell the difference between the material composition of various objects, utilising the appropriate amount of force to grab and move around household items and objects, working as your trusted partner to help with house chores like cleaning up messy rooms or sorting out the dishes after a meal.

    Samsung is continuing to build on its Samsung Bot Retail, which would guide users outside the home in retail environments, and GEMS, its health-focused exoskeleton as mobility aide. These innovations allow robots and robotic devices to co-exist with humans, enhancing their lives and catering to a variety of lifestyles and different environments.

  • Vistara’s Robot wins big at ICMG Global Architecture Excellence Awards 2018

    Vistara’s Robot wins big at ICMG Global Architecture Excellence Awards 2018

    MUMBAI: Vistara, India’s finest full-service carrier, has bagged the prestigious ICMG Global Architecture Excellence Awards 2018 at the Architecture World Summit 2018 recently held in New York, USA. Vistara’s Robotics Program – of which the airline recently introduced India’s first robot designed to assist travellers at airports – was adjudged the winner in two categories – Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Enabled Solution and Customer Centricity & Excellence categories, by an eminent jury panel led by Mr. John Zachman, known as the Father of Enterprise Architecture. Vistara’s robot won against innovations from some of world’s biggest organizations operating in diverse sectors.

    Winners of the coveted ICMG Global Architecture Excellence Awards are selected through an elaborate, stringent process of four rounds that requires showcase of technology expertise, deep domain understanding, overall vision for the industry and a case study presentation at Architecture World Summit.

    Expressing his delight, Mr. Leslie Thng, Chief Executive Officer, Vistara, said, “We are happy to receive this recognition for an innovation that truly reflects Vistara’s steadfast focus on transforming the experience for air travellers.”

    Mr. Ravinder Pal Singh, Chief Information & Innovation Officer, Vistara, said, “For us, Vistara’s robot is a remarkable ‘Make in India’ story, and for it to be recognized at a global platform against world leaders in technology, makes this award so special. At Vistara, we are very upbeat about leveraging AI and other technologies to drive innovation that would make air travel a truly seamless and joyful experience.”

    In the last 12 years, ICMG Architecture Awards have become the most prestigious global award program honoring excellence in the Enterprise and IT Architecture, with the leading companies from over 30 countries participating every year.

    Vistara’s robot was also recently awarded by ET NOW for ‘Excellence in Leveraging IT for Business Performance. As part of its futuristic technology framework, Vistara introduced the first-of-its-kind robot earlier this year and ushered in a novel innovation in the form of an indigenously built robot that assists travellers in the airline’s lounge at New Delhi’s Terminal 3, Indira Gandhi International Airport, addresses their queries and also entertains them. It is built on a chassis of four wheels, enabling it to rotate 360 degrees, and has three in-built cameras for cognitive interaction. At present, the robot is equipped to perform functions such as scanning boarding passes, providing useful information about the terminal, departure gates, weather conditions of the destination city, real time flight status, play songs, games, etc. The robot’s capabilities are being enhanced and it is being upgraded to perform more complex tasks in the near future, to assist travellers in many more ways.

    As the highest-rated Indian airline on Skytrax and TripAdvisor, and winner of several ‘Best in Industry’ awards, Vistara has consistently raised the bar for operations and service delivery in the Indian aviation industry in a short span of less than four years. The airline today serves 22 destinations with over 800 flights a week and a fleet of 22 aircraft, and has flown over 12 million customers since launch.

    About Vistara (TATA SIA Airlines Limited): TATA SIA Airlines Limited, known by the brand name Vistara, is a joint venture between Tata Sons Limited and Singapore Airlines Limited (SIA) with Tata Sons holding the majority stake of 51% in the company and SIA holding the remaining 49%. Vistara brings together Tata’s and SIA’s legendary hospitality and renowned service excellence to launch the finest full-service carrier in India aimed at creating memorable and personalized flying experiences for its customers. Vistara commenced its commercial operations on January 9, 2015 with an aim to set new standards in the aviation industry in India.

  • Leading Korean filmmaker impressed by Rajini ‘Robot’; keen to co-produce with India

    Leading Korean filmmaker impressed by Rajini ‘Robot’; keen to co-produce with India

    NEW DELHI: Critically-acclaimed Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-Woon, whose action thriller ‘The Age of Shadows’ is the Closing Film for the International Film Festival of India, said it would “surely be great” to incorporate elements of cinema from both countries into each other’s films.

    Addressing the media in Panaji, he said he would like to mix the elements of Indian cinema like humour and other real life emotions into Korean films, he added.

    Kim said he has been greatly inspired by the stalwarts of Indian cinema like Satyajit Ray and his films like Pather Panchali and Aparajita among others. They have had a major impression on his style of film making. He would like to collaborate with the Indian film industry to make films on history and the Independence struggle in both the countries, he added.

    Jee-woon, who led successful films like “I Saw the Devil”, “The Last Stand” and “The Good, the Bad, the Weird”, was highly impressed with the Tamil superstar Rajinikanth’s “Robot” and would love to make a film like that some mix of historical drama.

    Lead actor Song Kang-Ho said he is honoured that their film – which is also the South Korean entry in the Oscars – has been selected as the Closing Film at the IFFI 2016 and he is hopeful that the times to come would see more critically acclaimed films from both India and Korea being screened for the people in both the countries.

    Set in Seoul and Shanghai, during the Japanese occupation in the late 1920s, the film depicts an intense drama that unfolds between a group of resistance fighters trying to bring in explosives from Shanghai to destroy key Japanese facilities in Seoul, on one side, and Japanese agents trying to stop them, on the other. A talented Korean-born Japanese police officer, who was previously in the independence movement himself, is thrown into a dilemma between the demands of his reality and the instinct to support a greater cause.

    Kim said his film is not an attempt to show action and violence on the screen but to depict intense emotions associated with the Korean Independence struggle against the Japanese occupation. He informed that he has tried his best to show these emotions through special sound effects and the ability of his actors to emote them on the screen.

  • Leading Korean filmmaker impressed by Rajini ‘Robot’; keen to co-produce with India

    Leading Korean filmmaker impressed by Rajini ‘Robot’; keen to co-produce with India

    NEW DELHI: Critically-acclaimed Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-Woon, whose action thriller ‘The Age of Shadows’ is the Closing Film for the International Film Festival of India, said it would “surely be great” to incorporate elements of cinema from both countries into each other’s films.

    Addressing the media in Panaji, he said he would like to mix the elements of Indian cinema like humour and other real life emotions into Korean films, he added.

    Kim said he has been greatly inspired by the stalwarts of Indian cinema like Satyajit Ray and his films like Pather Panchali and Aparajita among others. They have had a major impression on his style of film making. He would like to collaborate with the Indian film industry to make films on history and the Independence struggle in both the countries, he added.

    Jee-woon, who led successful films like “I Saw the Devil”, “The Last Stand” and “The Good, the Bad, the Weird”, was highly impressed with the Tamil superstar Rajinikanth’s “Robot” and would love to make a film like that some mix of historical drama.

    Lead actor Song Kang-Ho said he is honoured that their film – which is also the South Korean entry in the Oscars – has been selected as the Closing Film at the IFFI 2016 and he is hopeful that the times to come would see more critically acclaimed films from both India and Korea being screened for the people in both the countries.

    Set in Seoul and Shanghai, during the Japanese occupation in the late 1920s, the film depicts an intense drama that unfolds between a group of resistance fighters trying to bring in explosives from Shanghai to destroy key Japanese facilities in Seoul, on one side, and Japanese agents trying to stop them, on the other. A talented Korean-born Japanese police officer, who was previously in the independence movement himself, is thrown into a dilemma between the demands of his reality and the instinct to support a greater cause.

    Kim said his film is not an attempt to show action and violence on the screen but to depict intense emotions associated with the Korean Independence struggle against the Japanese occupation. He informed that he has tried his best to show these emotions through special sound effects and the ability of his actors to emote them on the screen.

  • Hungama TV rebooted

    Hungama TV rebooted

    MUMBAI: Disney UTV’s kids’ channel – Hungama TV – has had a makeover of sorts. The new avatar imparts a more local flavour while retaining the ‘unapologetically fun loving, mischievous and boisterous’ character of the channel.

    The redesigned page was launched on 1 October and it took the in-house team at Disney Interactive a little less than two months for the conceptualisation, direction and execution.

    Of the reboot, Disney UTV Media Networks director – creative services Prashant Madan says: “We have taken the traditional values of Hungama TV, and what it stood for, and just given it a new voice. And we wanted to reach out and put out a message as to what the new voice would be.”

    It's more like a challenge rather than a question explains Madan speaking about the new tagline – Hungama Machaya Kya?

    The brand refresh has been three-pronged; replete with a new tagline – Hungama Machaya Kya?, a new on-air look and package, and a fresh interactive feel.

    “So when we are talking about fun, we just don’t want to show it but make our users feel it, so our live action would really place our brand in a unique place as other kids’ brands don’t do that and it’s a very stand-out thing that we intend on doing. For our positioning, we used real kids to portray what we are trying to say. Like in adults, we have thought leaders, in kids, we have action leaders. So we wanted to inspire other kids and that is where the live action animation comes into play. And that kind of feeling can only be portrayed in true light with the right use of animation and graphics,” elaborates Madan.

    Supplementing the new look for the channel is a music video featuring kids in a colourful, playful mood, bringing alive emotions they experience in everyday life.

    “We have gone a step further with the graphic packaging as well, by adding a lot of things that kids find attractive and love to do. Like flying kites, latoos or playing marbles. So we have drawn inspiration from these small things that kids love to do at that age and converted them into something far more fun and engaging.”

    Incidentally, this is just the first phase of the revamp and the second phase will happen over the course of the year and will be more marketing and content-led.

    Madan says the new tagline is based on a recent survey by the channel where it emerged that there are always a few kids in every group who dictate the action and activities of the flock. Hungama decided to highlight these kids through its tagline while inspiring other children to follow their example and live life to the fullest. “So it’s more like a challenge rather than a question… so go out there and live life is what we are trying to say,” explains Madan.

    Additionally, the channel plans to go more local through its shows like Veer – The Robot, Luv Kush, King Vikram, and Suryaputra Karan.

    The brand refresh has been three-pronged; replete with a new tagline – Hungama Machaya Kya?, a new on-air look and package, and a fresh interactive feel

    So what’s the response so far? “It’s a bit too early to put numbers on the results of the revamp but with time, we will surely be studying them, as it’s something that our users need to acclimatise to,” says Madan.

    Of Disney UTV’s four youth-centric channels – Disney, Hungama, Disney XD and Disney Junior – Hungama is the only channel that is truly home-grown in nature. “We are a channel that is very Indian at heart, and extremely driven by Indian values and visuals, we drew our inspiration for this from the funfair that happens, because we wanted to imbibe the colours, the energy and the vibrancy that is in abundance in these melas, and so we have used those colours and also made ample use of symbols like the kite, latoo, see-saw or the marble contest to make the packaging very vibrant and Indian in nature,” rounds off Madan.

  • Railways pose new hurdle to Mausam

    Railways pose new hurdle to Mausam

    MUMBAI: Looks like the path to the release of Pankaj Kapoor’s Mausam has been laid by hurdles.


    After crossing the Censor Board hurdle and the IAF one, the film has now been hit by another obstacle. The Railway ministry has objected to a scene where Shahid Kapoor is shown in a car speeding across a level crossing in front of an approaching train.
     
    Stunts in and around trains is a common phenomena in our films these days. Aamir Khan did it in Ghulam, Rajinikanth in Robot and recently Salman Khan in Bodyguard.


    The makers of the film are yet to respond to the new issue.