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I got to go to the robotics conf in Boston this week. This
was a different experience for someone who hasn’t been to a show with much real
hardware for ages.
The first technical conference I ever covered was IEEE Electro
in Boston. And the memories rushed back. My hopes to succeed in this business
were somewhat dashed at the start of Electro – it was a crush of imagery undeciphered.
The impression remains: I was at a medieval bazar in a Star Wars universe. And
without words.
In those days they had well-built women [the derogatory term
pocket protector men used was ‘booth bunnies’] along with [what I know now
could be] shabbily built printed circuit boards (jerry rigged to make the show
deadline with jumper cables here and there]. I remember looking at a pile of
colorful metal shapes, wondering what was what [they were heat sinks of wide
variety]. Anyway, you start out by asking ‘what is this?’ - you pay attention
to the answer, and you keep on keeping on.
At last week's event the variety, complexity and sheer
hardwareness of the many feedback sensors and actuators was what caught my
attention. There were robotic end effectors,force/ torque
sensors, rotary actuators, pneumatic end of arm tooling and robotic arms and
more. Feedback technology has been a particular interest of mine since I first
got into the Velvet Underground. I’ve written a bit about sensors in the
context of IoT. Thinking about doing more.
A couple of takeaways. These people are selling to
manufacturers, the military, and medical equipment firms. The components are
singular and difficult – with none of the pizzazz of your Silicon Valley
bloodless software components. The concept of IoT is foreign, and a bit laughable.
The vendors believe in a future with Digital Twins, and maybe even a metaverse. But they are nose to ground with end-point dilemmas. IoT is high concept. The most important questions to ask are at the end-point sensor level.
That is a general impression. Specifically, I did come
across a company that helps its customers make vision sensing work. It was
fascinating to learn about the multivarious gotchas in correctly scanning a scene. They call what they do
“Perception.” What the world needs now!
Also saw a former TechTarget Senior developer whose brain I
used to pick sometimes. He had the misfortune of getting laid off by Shopify
last week – he is hail fellow well met sometimes hellbent for leather [when he quit TT he peeled out of the parking lot
dramatically in his black Dodge Challenger as I recall.] Alpha but mellow being
out of work for the first time since he was 14.
He worked at a robot maker that had been acquired by Shopify
doing fulfillment software backroom end I guess. I’ve been reading up on this
topic a bit more, especially Shopify. They were going to take on Amazon, doing
end to end logistics/supply chain. Amazon’s strategy has been to do everything
and do it great and not to worry about profit margin but get market. That
forced wannabe Shopify [a money loser] to spend billions on numerous
acquisitions. And now they sold assets and let go 80% of developers- and Wall
Street was made happy for a few days. There is a lot to unpack in that
whole happening/episode. The event was held on D
Street not far from A Street (where my father was born 110 years ago this July).
Also caught in the Shopify sweep was Dion Almaer, their
chief development evangelist, who I worked with after a fashion on Ajaxian way
back. [Those early JavaScript guys were true revolutionaries – they found
obstacles in the browser support and IT server protectionism, and they found
workarounds that changed middleware completely.
I’d like to pick Dion’s brain about that fading epoch.] Dion is one of
the top developer jocks in the world in my opinion – now available for work.
Arthritis has been a game changer for me. Gone for me are the days of 10 hours x 3 days show schlepping – and then late evening hotel bar closing. But I am healthing-up [this morning] and preparing to take on another push. Like Keith Richards ever says with dandy effect – glad to be here, glad to be anywhere.
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| Julie Newmar, played Rhoda the Robot on 1964 sitcom My Living Doll - combining all aspects of interest for 14-year-old Jack. |
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