Here’s a look at the week’s top consumer robotics stories. Watch the video above for a quick recap of the week and check out the following links for more details.
Google Self-Driving Car Causes First Accident – Google claimed some responsibility for a fender-bender with a California public transit bus on Valentine’s Day. This was the first time a Google self-driving car caused an accident in autonomous mode. This video captured the damage a Google self-driving car sustained after hitting a public bus in California on Valentine’s Day.
Stanford’s Self-Driving Car ‘Shelley’ Races Around at 120 MPH – The custom Audi TTS was recently tested at the three-mile Thunderhill Raceway in California. Shelley hit average speeds of between 50-70MPH, but on the quicker parts of the track the self-driving car reached speed between 110-120 MPH. Shelley was developed to see how the car adjusts its throttle, braking systems and record data from these movements to be to improve collision avoidance software.
DJI Phantom 4 Drone Introduced – The DJI Phantom 4 drone was introduced today, and it’s the easiest and safest drone DJI has produced to date. We compared the DJI Phantom 4 to older Phantom drones.
Neato Botvac Connected Adds Smartwatch Controls – An Apple Watch and Android Wear device can start and stop the Botvac Connected robot vacuum and monitor its cleanup progress. Neato claims the Botvac Connected is the first robot vacuum to offer smartwatch control.
Amazon Alexa Expands Smart Home Voice Controls – Amazon Echo Dot and Amazon Tap are two new Alexa-enabled devices designed to be the voice-controlled back-end for everything in a smart home. Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem continues to get smarter.