Amazon's newest robot gains a sense of touch
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
The company
Advertisement
Now Vulcan can also
Humans will still load many items onto the shelving pods. Vulcan will concentrate on filling cubbies at the lower and higher sections of the eight-foot-tall pods. That should spare the human workers from bending and stretching in ways that could cause repetitive stress injuries.
Advertisement
'Vulcan is really good at doing that part of the job,' Dresser said. 'So we provide better work environment, safer work environment, for our employees.'
While that may require fewer workers loading the pods, Amazon will add jobs in robot maintenance, Dresser said. 'As we deploy more robots, we need more skilled folks that are helping us with maintenance,' he said.
So far the Vulcan robots have only been installed at a facility in Spokane, Washington, and Hamburg, Germany. The plan is to deploy thousands of the touch-sensing bots at warehouses around the world, Dresser said.
The team that designed Vulcan named the bot after the Roman god of fire and blacksmithing, he said. 'The team is a builder team and they like this connotation of a forge and building something new,' Dresser said.
Amazon has already manufactured more than 750,000 of its other types of robots at its facilities in Westborough and North Reading. The Amazon Robotics unit was created more than a decade ago when the company bought local startup Kiva Systems, helping stoke
Aaron Pressman can be reached at
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Historic English cities demand right to impose tourist tax
Bath and Cambridge are urging the government to allow them to introduce tourist taxes, becoming the latest in a string of English destinations seeking similar levies. While Scotland and Wales have granted their councils the ability to tax tourists, at present the UK government has no law giving English local authorities the power to impose visitor levies. In recent months, an increasing number of cities and popular destinations around England have been voicing their eagerness to introduce similar tourist taxes. Bath and Cambridge are among the latest, having joined forces in urging Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner to consider passing a visitor levy law in England. The two cities attract hordes of tourists every year, with visitors drawn to Bath's Roman-built baths and Georgian architecture, while Cambridge appeals to visitors with its world-renowned university and pretty city centre. In a letter sent to Ms Rayner, the leaders of Bath & North East Somerset Council and Cambridge City Council state that their 'destination' cities are under growing amounts of pressure when it comes to tourism. They note that the number of visitors is putting local infrastructure under strain and increasing demands on services like waste management. The councils are seeking a roundtable with the government to explore ways that they can support sustainable tourism in their cities, including the introduction of 'a modest visitor levy' with revenue that will benefit both residents and visitors. The cities are keen for a similar structure to that which has been applied in Wales and Scotland, whereby levies would be applied across all types of accommodation, including short-term lets like Airbnb. Councillor Kevin Guy, leader of Bath & North East Somerset Council, has called for a 'fairer system' that recognises the costs of playing a role in the national visitor economy. He said that the council should be given the tools to manage tourism 'in a way that reflects local needs and priorities', as well as sustain the quality of the city for visitors. Cameron Holloway, leader of Cambridge City Council, said that while it is proud to welcome so many visitors a year, the 'high numbers of tourists ebbing and flowing through our relatively small medieval city centre can have a serious impact on local people, and can detract from the visitor experience'. 'If tourism in historic cities like ours is to remain sustainable and internationally competitive, we need to be given the means to manage the flow of visitors and to address some of the negative impacts of tourism on local residents, public realm, and infrastructure,' he added. The councils also want to explore other ways that sustainable tourism can be upheld in their heritage destinations, while still being able to enjoy the benefits from the visitor economy. Cambridge and Bath have both followed other destinations seeking the powers to impose a tourist tax. This includes Brent, home of Wembley Stadium, which attracts huge crowds and is keen to reinvest the funds from levies in local infrastructure. Oxford has also floated the idea of introducing a tourist tax through a legal workaround, which would involve setting up an Accommodation Business Improvement District (ABID) that would allow hotels to charge an extra fee to be reinvested in projects in the area.
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Boston Globe
Venture funding for Mass. startups drops to lowest in years, as other states rise
Only 158 companies here received funding in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly number in at least a decade. Startups collected a total of $2.6 billion in new money, down 37 percent from a year ago and the least in any quarter since 2017. (The drop comes after some The biggest deals in the quarter were for cancer imaging startup Lumicell in Newton, which raised almost $200 million, biotech drug developer Antares Therapeutics in Boston, which raised $177 million, and Advertisement The drop for Massachusetts came despite growing VC funding for startups in some other states. California-based startups, fueled largely by the ongoing AI boom, raised $42.6 billion, a 71 percent increase from last year's second quarter. Arizona posted a nearly 10-fold gain to $3.1 billion, mostly for Advertisement The fundraising picture for local VC investment firms was equally grim. Just six Massachusetts-based venture capital firms raised a total of $1.1 billion in the first half of 2025, PitchBook said. That's on pace for the lowest total in over a decade. Last year, 32 venture funds raised a total of $6.3 billion. Aaron Pressman can be reached at
Business Insider
6 days ago
- Business Insider
Playnance Launches G Coin — A Next-Gen Crypto Asset With Real Daily Utility and On-Chain Scarcity
Playnance, the infrastructure company behind the fully on-chain platform PlayW3, has officially launched G Coin (GCOIN) — a community-driven, next-generation crypto asset engineered for daily utility and long-term value. With over 8,000 global holders, 2,000%+ growth, and a market cap above $3.5 million, G Coin is emerging as a standout on-chain asset in the Web3 economy. G Coin isn't a speculative meme coin or a static governance token — it's a live utility currency powering hundreds of thousands of daily on-chain interactions. And its growth isn't theoretical — it's algorithmically programmed. 'We didn't create G Coin to be traded — we created it to be used. With real usage, fixed scarcity, and full on-chain transparency, we believe G Coin is the Bitcoin of gaming — not just in narrative, but in structure. It's a crypto asset with utility, demand, and a built-in mechanism for growth' - said Roman, CTO at Playnance. A Crypto Asset With Code-Enforced Scarcity G Coin's supply and pricing are governed entirely by smart contract — not by market makers, governance votes, or centralized controls. Key mechanics: Step-based minting: Each time a fixed supply milestone is reached, 54 million G Coins are minted and the price rises by 2% Fixed maximum supply: Minting ends permanently at Step 500- no tokens can be created beyond this point No inflation or admin controls: Supply and pricing are hard-coded and cannot be changed Minted on demand: New G Coins are only created when the previous step is fully sold — ensuring every token enters circulation based on real user demand, within a strictly capped supply model This makes G Coin one of the few tokens where supply, demand, and price are fully automated — and predictable. Real Demand, Already in Motion G Coin is not an idea on paper — it's already embedded into one of the most active Web3 ecosystems: the fully on-chain gaming platform PlayW3. Every day, G Coin powers: On-chain transactions Reward payouts User activity Platform engagement This creates live, measurable demand that grows as the ecosystem scales — with every action logged on-chain and tied directly to token velocity. Powered by Playnance, Built on PlayBlock G Coin is deployed on PlayBlock, Playnance's proprietary blockchain, optimized for high-speed, gasless transactions. All buyers receive free gas tokens automatically, making participation frictionless — even for non-technical users. Security and transparency are built into the base layer: Smart contract-verified emissions and pricing Real-time visibility on PlayBlock Explorer Transparent vesting schedules across all stakeholders Expanding Beyond a Single Platform G Coin is already in use across multiple social gaming platforms, including PlayW3, Sharker, and Playbita — each leveraging the token to power transactions, rewards, and user engagement. By the end of the year, G Coin is projected to become usable across over 10,000 games and social gaming apps, as part of Playnance's broader ecosystem expansion. This positions G Coin not just as a platform token — but as the underlying currency of a multi-platform, cross-game economy. As a community-driven token, G Coin is designed to reward participation — with every holder contributing to growth, velocity, and long-term value. Designed for Scarcity, Positioned for Growth Each step in the G Coin supply raises the price by 2% — with no exceptions and no delays. This creates a direct link between adoption and price movement, visible on-chain in real time. With over 2,000% growth, and a $3.5M+ market cap still in early development stages, G Coin is emerging as one of the most unique and transparent assets in the on-chain economy — built for usage, not speculation. Live Now — Fully On-Chain G Coin is now available for direct purchase through the official PlayW3 platform. Buyers can monitor the current step, secure the live price, and join a fully verifiable, community-driven token system. Playnance is a Web3 infrastructure company building real-time, transparent, and reward-driven applications on the PlayBlock blockchain. From protocol-level innovations to full-scale platforms like PlayW3, Playnance focuses on deploying secure, scalable systems that connect user action to real value. Contact Marketing Manager Sarah Peter
