Rethink Robotics is gone — or is it? News from Germany and China should provide relief for owners of Baxter and Sawyer cobots worried about continuing support.

A vocal shareholder, Red Mountain Capital, is “deeply concerned” with iRobot’s level of performance.

Baxter and Sawyer become part of integrated offering, as Rethink responds to job fears and opens offices in Asia.

Daniel Theobald, CTO of Vecna Technologies, discusses his hopes for MassRobotics to help the entire industry.

The Australian Centre for Robotic Vision is working to improve machine vision for tasks such as fruit picking and environmental monitoring.

Rethink Robotics announced its Sawyer collaborative robot, a nimbler model than Baxter that is intended for a wide range of automated tasks in global manufacturing.

Despite the claims of some studies, human skills will still be marketable as industrial automation increases. Workers will need retraining and some tech smarts to retain careers alongside robots.

Rethink Robotics has introduced version 3.1 of its Intera software that allows the Baxter collaborative robot “to manage and adapt to ever-changing, real-world environments.” The key feature in the software upgrade is Rethink’s Robot Positioning System (RPS) that more quickly and easily re-deploys Baxter after common plant-floor variations occur, such as tables being bumped and fixtures being moved.

The new manufacturing ecosystem displaces traditional manufacturing.

The deal reflects the RBR50 company’s desire to get Baxter into more R&D settings in corporations, think tanks and even in academia.

Rod?s backstory is quite amazing, which begs the question: what took this award so long in coming his way?

“Customers that don’t want intelligence and situational awareness in their industrial robots.”

Rethink Robotics has released a software update for its Baxter robot, making it faster, more precise and easier to use.

Rethink Robotics has tapped Jim Lawton and Milan Shah, two software industry veterans, to spearhead market innovation and product engineering.

Are SMBs wary of robots?

Rethink Robotics Refocuses, Downsizes

Eight companies gobbled up in eight months is not the kind of thing decided on by scribbles on a restaurant napkin.

Researchers at the universities are using the robot to create a wide array of custom applications.

Download this report for an in-depth look at the cultural trends, companies and technologies contributing to the co-worker robot revolution

Robots are the key to our manufacturing future. Look out for Perspectives 2013: The Next-Gen, New-Gen, Co-worker Robotics Revolution

According to expert analyst Dan Kara, Rethink Robotics is very well positioned, in terms of executive leadership, financing and first-to-market advantage to monopolize the market for its unique class of manufacturing robots for the foreseeable future.