Bit of a crazy week this week. A lot has been happening, both in the tech world… and also, my personal world.
Anyway, here’s my Top Two Tech Stories of the week… and starting with Elon who never seems t disappoint us!
- Tesla’s Human Robot
Tesla will branch out from building electric, self-driving cars to produce humanoid robots designed to “eliminate dangerous, repetitive, boring tasks” and respond to voice commands from their owners.
The robot, referred to as Optimus by those inside the company, will be 173 centimetres tall and weigh 57 kilograms. Its body will be powered by 40 electromechanical actuators and its face will feature a screen display.
Optimus will be able to carry a cargo of up to 20 kilograms, and Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk claims that a working prototype will be ready next year.
“Tesla is arguably the world’s biggest robotics company because our cars are like semi-sentient robots on wheels,” he said. “It kind of makes sense to put that onto a humanoid form. We’re also quite good at sensors and batteries and actuators.” Said Elon.
Musk said the machine will be limited to a walking speed of 8 kilometres per hour and will be deliberately weak enough that most humans will be able to overpower it if needed. “You never know,” said Musk, who had suggested earlier in his presentation that artificial general intelligence – hypothetical AIs that could complete any task a human can perform – was the largest threat currently facing humanity.
Up next, we have something happening over at Apple…
2. Not one but a few launch events for Apple!
We know that Apple is planning to launch a wealth of new devices before the end of the year – including the iPhone 13, the Apple Watch 7, the iPad mini 6, a new entry-level iPad, updated AirPods and a couple of MacBooks – but when are they going to be unveiled?
According to a new DigiTimes report based on supply chain sources, all of this hardware will be launched in the month of September 2021, across a couple of virtual events that are going to be streamed online.
It would be an unusual move for Apple, but it’s not entirely out of the question – after all, prerecorded virtual events without any in-person attendees are easier to queue up than ones held in a physical location with an audience.
Apple traditionally has a lot of hardware to launch in the final third of each year, with the new iPhone usually starting everything off in September. However, last year’s launch schedule was heavily impacted by the global pandemic.
And how is the pandemic going to effect other companies – we know it’s having an impact on the car market – where automotive manufacturers have had to cut down production due to shortages in the supply chain (mainly down to chip shortages).
So there we go… Elon with a human robot, and Apple with a lot of devices coming around September (onwards) time… within several events.