Technologies

Amazon Unveils AI-Using Warehouse Robot With Human-Like Sense of Touch

Amazon’s new Vulcan robot uses physical AI to carefully stow and pick everything from socks to fragile electronics at fulfillment centers.

Amazon’s new Vulcan fulfillment center robot doesn’t look humanoid, but it has some very human characteristics, like the ability to «feel» the items it’s handling.

Amazon introduced Vulcan at its Delivering the Future event in Germany on May 7.

«Built on key advances in robotics, engineering, and physical AI, Vulcan is our first robot with a sense of touch,» the company said in a statement. The event is a showcase for Amazon’s technology innovations.

Vulcan can stow or pick items from the fabric-covered pods Amazon uses for inventory storage. It has a human–like finesse when handling objects. Force feedback sensors help the robot avoid damaging the merchandise.

A suction cup and camera system comes into play when Vulcan is pulling items out of bins.

«While the suction cup grabs it, the camera watches to make sure it took the right thing and only the right thing, avoiding what our engineers call the risk of ‘co-extracting non-target items,'» Amazon said.

Vulcan is in place at fulfillment centers in Spokane, Wash. and Hamburg, Germany. It’s primarily tasked with reaching items stored low that require a human to bend down, or items stored up high that require an employee to use a stepladder.

The rise of robots in traditionally human-powered workplaces can be a sensitive subject. Amazon makes it clear it sees Vulcan as an assistant to its employees rather than a replacement for them.

Vulcan can handle 75% of the types of items stocked at the fulfillment centers. It’s designed to know which ones it can move and which ones it needs to ask for human help for — like a robot-human tag team.

The robot uses a physical AI system that includes «algorithms for identifying which items Vulcan can or can’t handle, finding space within bins, identifying tubes of toothpaste and boxes of paper clips and much more.» The AI was trained on everything from socks to electronics and continues to learn as the robot works.

Humans and robots can effectively coexist in distribution centers, said logistics and operations researchers Rene de Koster of Erasmus University in the Netherlands and Debjit Roy of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

«Right now, at least, distribution center automation with people in the mix is often a more efficient, flexible and cost-effective bet than a completely automated center,» the team said last year in a summary of their research for the Harvard Business Review.

Robots have long been part of Amazon’s operations with over 750,000 robots deployed in its fulfillment centers, the company said.

Vulcan will roll out to more centers in Europe and the US over the next couple of years, increasing the chances of your future Amazon shipments having Vulcan’s unseen «fingerprints» on them.

Technologies

Starlink Plans to Send 42K Satellites Into Space. That Could Be Bad News for the Ozone

Technologies

Scary Survey Results: Teen Drivers Are Often Looking at Their Phones

New troubling research found that entertainment is the most common reason teens use their phones behind the wheel, followed by texting and navigation.

A new study reveals that teen drivers in the US are spending more than one-fifth of their driving time distracted by their phones, with many glances lasting long enough to significantly raise the risk of a crash. Published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention and released on Thursday, the research found that, on average, teens reported looking at their phones during 21.1% of every driving trip. More than a quarter of those distractions lasted two seconds or longer, which is an amount of time widely recognized as dangerous at highway speeds.

Most distractions tied to entertainment, not emergencies

The top reason teens said they reached for their phones behind the wheel was for entertainment, cited by 65% of respondents. Texting (40%) and navigation (30%) were also common. Researchers emphasized that these distractions weren’t typically urgent, but rather habitual or social.

Teens know the risks

The study includes survey responses from 1,126 teen drivers across all four US regions, along with in-depth interviews with a smaller group of high schoolers. Most participants recognized that distracted driving is unsafe and believed their parents and peers disapproved of the behavior.

But many teens also assumed that their friends were doing it anyway, pointing to a disconnect between personal values and perceived social norms.

Teens think they can resist distractions

Interestingly, most teens expressed confidence in their ability to resist distractions. That belief, researchers suggest, could make it harder to change behavior unless future safety campaigns specifically target these attitudes.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Rebecca Robbins of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said interventions should aim to shift social norms while also emphasizing practical steps, such as enabling «Do Not Disturb» mode and physically separating drivers from their devices.

«Distracted driving is a serious public health threat and particularly concerning among young drivers,» Robbins said. «Driving distracted doesn’t just put the driver at risk of injury or death, it puts everyone else on the road in danger of an accident.»

What this means for parents and educators

The researchers say their findings can help guide educators and parents in developing more persuasive messaging about the dangers of distracted driving. One of the recommendations is that adults need to counter teens’ beliefs that phone use while driving is productive or harmless.

While the study’s qualitative component was limited by a small and non-urban sample, the authors believe the 38-question survey they developed can be used more broadly to assess beliefs, behaviors and the effectiveness of future safety efforts.

Technologies

Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con Issues? It Might Just Be Your HDMI Cable

Make sure to use the Switch 2 cable included with the new gaming console.

As the Switch 2 continues to sell in the millions for Nintendo, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there’d be some issues with the console. It appears, however, that one problem Switch 2 owners are facing is actually just a matter of using the wrong cable.

Reddit users have posted about their Joy-Cons disconnecting when they’re playing on their Switch 2 while it’s docked, an issue spotted earlier by IGN. It does appear that, luckily, the issue can be resolved by using the included HDMI cable for the Switch 2 rather than an older, slower one — including the cable that came with the original Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo laid out the solution on its support page for when the Joy-Con 2 starts disconnecting from the console:

Confirm that you’re using an «Ultra High Speed» HDMI cable to connect the dock to the TV. If it’s not Ultra High Speed, your console won’t perform as expected when docked.
If you’re using a different cable than the one that came with the console, it should have printed on the cable that it’s «Ultra High Speed.»
The HDMI cable that came with the Nintendo Switch is not «Ultra High Speed» and should not be used with the Nintendo Switch 2 dock.

Nintendo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the source of this issue.

Since the Switch 2 launch, many gamers have come to realize that Nintendo’s new console is very picky about what cables are connected to it. This goes for the HDMI cable as well as the power cable.

While the new and old Switch share the same name, they don’t share the same components. The Switch 2 is a huge upgrade in graphics power over the 2017 console, which means it needs the appropriate power supply. Not providing the Switch 2 with sufficient power could likely cause some issues, especially if the system has to do a lot of work to run a game.