Technology
The founders of Persona are sure that the world could use another humanoid robot
Jerry Pratt and Figura quietly split last month. The MIT scientist spent lower than two years at the Bay Area-based robotics company. In 2022, he left Boardwalk Robotics, the humanoid startup he founded and led, and joined the well-funded ranks of Figura as CTO a number of months before coming out of hiding.
However, it was only last week that Pratt made his departure public. The message has arrived via LinkedInas he announced the launch of another entry in the increasingly crowded world of humanoids. Persona AI is currently in as early a stage as possible, having only been officially founded last month.
The startup is the brainchild of Pratt and longtime collaborator Nic Radford, an industry veteran with a powerful resume of his own, including seven years in NASA robotics before founding Nauticus Robotics and Jacobi Motors.
“We wanted to get early signals from both people who wanted to work with us and investors that if we did something like this on LinkedIn, it wouldn’t be a flop,” Radford told TechCrunch.
The news was as much a hiring announcement because it was a brand reveal. “Hey LinkedIn!” Pratt remarked enthusiastically on the business website. “Have you ever dreamed of creating your own Iron Man suit, but without being a billionaire playboy?”
Radford and Pratt say they wish to hire a further 10-20 “founders” (their quotes) to assist shape the company. “Jerry and I are obviously a key part of this process,” Radford said, “but so are another 18 people. We really want to illustrate to them the company’s esprit de corps.”
At this early stage, Persona’s offerings don’t stray too removed from the various humanoid firms it goals to compete with. The introductory text on the company’s website is essentially a celebration of the technological breakthroughs that underpin this unique moment in robotics.
The founders write,
Now is a great time to commercialize humanoids. Computer vision and perception algorithms can now detect motion, discover and segment objects, and estimate poses at frame rates; electronics and computing systems have shrunk and increased efficiency so that they may be fully integrated into the robot without burdening the energy budget; mobility and manipulation algorithms are now competent enough to maneuver around rooms and perform commercially useful work; machine learning increases robot capabilities while reducing programming burden; investors are starting to imagine in the potential of humanoids; and business entities are on the lookout for humanoid robots for various applications where they will provide real added value.
That’s about so far as the pitch goes now, beyond investor presentations and worker interviews. Any advantage Persona ultimately believes it would have over Agility, Boston Dynamics, Figure, and the rest is not clear at this very early stage.
“It will be very similar in some ways, different in others,” Radford replied cryptically. “It’s like how GM feels in comparison with Ford or Toyota or some other automobile company. Every company feels, deep inside, that it has certain competitive benefits. And then, deep inside, every company is commoditized and reduced to the same things. All of them provide transportation. Do now we have our version of the Dodge Hemi? We’d prefer to think so.”
Pratt, for instance, was confident enough in Persona’s vision that he left a top job at one of the most distinguished and best-funded humanoid robotics firms, Figure. Pratt says the split was amicable, and once I spoke to Figure founder and CEO Brett Adcock last week about his latest project, Cover, he spoke highly of his former CTO. Pratt says the decision was partly geographic.
“I flew between Pensacola (Florida) and California every two weeks,” Pratt said. “At first, when I joined Figure, I thought (Pratt and his wife) would be able to move to California in about two years. I planned to do it, but it just didn’t work out. It was quite a mutual parting of the ways.”
Instead of establishing shop in a standard robotics hotbed like Boston or Pittsburgh, Persona will split its operations between Pratt’s home in Pensacola and Houston. The latter shall be the company’s headquarters and ultimately roughly two-thirds of Persona’s employees will work there.
Technology
US medical device giant Artivion says hackers stole files during a cybersecurity incident
Artivion, a medical device company that produces implantable tissue for heart and vascular transplants, says its services have been “disrupted” resulting from a cybersecurity incident.
In 8-K filing In an interview with the SEC on Monday, Georgia-based Artivion, formerly CryoLife, said it became aware of a “cybersecurity incident” that involved the “compromise and encryption” of information on November 21. This suggests that the corporate was attacked by ransomware, but Artivion has not yet confirmed the character of the incident and didn’t immediately reply to TechCrunch’s questions. No major ransomware group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Artivion said it took some systems offline in response to the cyberattack, which the corporate said caused “disruptions to certain ordering and shipping processes.”
Artivion, which reported third-quarter revenue of $95.8 million, said it didn’t expect the incident to have a material impact on the corporate’s funds.
Technology
It’s a Raspberry Pi 5 in a keyboard and it’s called Raspberry Pi 500
Manufacturer of single-board computers Raspberry Pi is updating its cute little computer keyboard device with higher specs. Named Raspberry Pi500This successor to the Raspberry Pi 400 is just as powerful as the present Raspberry Pi flagship, the Raspberry Pi 5. It is on the market for purchase now from Raspberry Pi resellers.
The Raspberry Pi 500 is the simplest method to start with the Raspberry Pi because it’s not as intimidating because the Raspberry Pi 5. When you take a look at the Raspberry Pi 500, you do not see any chipsets or PCBs (printed circuit boards). The Raspberry Pi is totally hidden in the familiar housing, the keyboard.
The idea with the Raspberry Pi 500 is you could connect a mouse and a display and you are able to go. If, for instance, you’ve got a relative who uses a very outdated computer with an outdated version of Windows, the Raspberry Pi 500 can easily replace the old PC tower for many computing tasks.
More importantly, this device brings us back to the roots of the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi computers were originally intended for educational applications. Over time, technology enthusiasts and industrial customers began using single-board computers all over the place. (For example, when you’ve ever been to London Heathrow Airport, all of the departures and arrivals boards are there powered by Raspberry Pi.)
Raspberry Pi 500 draws inspiration from the roots of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a non-profit organization. It’s the right first computer for college. In some ways, it’s a lot better than a Chromebook or iPad because it’s low cost and highly customizable, which inspires creative pondering.
The Raspberry Pi 500 comes with a 32GB SD card that comes pre-installed with Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based Linux distribution. It costs $90, which is a slight ($20) price increase over the Raspberry Pi 400.
Only UK and US keyboard variants will probably be available at launch. But versions with French, German, Italian, Japanese, Nordic and Spanish keyboard layouts will probably be available soon. And when you’re in search of a bundle that features all the things you would like, Raspberry Pi also offers a $120 desktop kit that features the Raspberry Pi 500, a mouse, a 27W USB-C power adapter, and a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable.
In other news, Raspberry Pi has announced one other recent thing: the Raspberry Pi monitor. It is a 15.6-inch 1080p monitor that’s priced at $100. Since there are quite a few 1080p portable monitors available on the market, this launch is not as noteworthy because the Pi 500. However, for die-hard Pi fans, there’s now also a Raspberry Pi-branded monitor option available.
Technology
Apple Vision Pro may add support for PlayStation VR controllers
According to Apple, Apple desires to make its Vision Pro mixed reality device more attractive for gamers and game developers latest report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
The Vision Pro was presented more as a productivity and media consumption device than a tool geared toward gamers, due partly to its reliance on visual and hand controls moderately than a separate controller.
However, Apple may need gamers if it desires to expand the Vision Pro’s audience, especially since Gurman reports that lower than half one million units have been sold to this point. As such, the corporate has reportedly been in talks with Sony about adding support for PlayStation VR2 handheld controllers, and has also talked to developers about whether they may support the controllers of their games.
Offering more precise control, Apple may also make other forms of software available in Vision Pro, reminiscent of Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop.
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