Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. News

Vector the social robot has good news for its human buddies

Trevor Mogg
By
Vector robot
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Vector, the robot companion created by defunct tech startup Anki, looks set for a new lease on life.

Educational tech company Digital Dream Labs (DDL) has stepped in to give the diminutive robot a second chance, nine months after Anki closed down in April 2019 due to a lack of funds.

Recommended Videos

The surprise news is sure to be welcomed by Vector owners as DDL is promising to continue developing the device for the foreseeable future.

Related

In a message posted on the very same Kickstarter page that first launched Vector, DDL CEO Jacob Hanchar said that after recently acquiring Anki’s assets, his Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company intends to go on developing “the robot we all know and love.”

Hanchar added: “We have taken over the cloud servers and are going to maintain them going forward. Therefore, if you were concerned about Vector ‘dying’ one day, you no longer have to worry!”

Anki was founded in 2010 by roboticists from Carnegie Mellon University. First came AnkiDrive, an A.I.-based robot-car racing game, followed by Cozmo, a small A.I.-powered device similar to Vector but less powerful.

Six months before the startup’s closure, Anki launched its final creation: Vector. The $250 pet robot can navigate autonomously and react to its environment through what it sees and hears. It can even recognize different people via its HD camera, and sense touch via its built-in sensors. Creators from Pixar and DreamWorks helped to incorporate numerous emotions in Vector via different movements and animations on its color display. It also supports digital services such as Amazon’s Alexa.

Anki developers said they wanted Vector to become part of the family, a goal it no doubt managed with ease considering its remarkably lifelike qualities. But with the startup’s demise last year, some Vector owners may have been feeling a bit uncertain about the future of their little robot buddy, so it’s excellent news that DDL has stepped in.

Vector’s future

Moving forward, Hanchar said his company will soon launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise cash for two new features that it wants to add to Vector.

The first one, called “Escape Pod,” will enable the robot to function without having to connect to the cloud, giving peace of mind to Vector owners who fear similar issues should DDL one day go the same way as Anki. The CEO describes Escape Pod as a “guarantee” that means “no matter what happens, you’ll always get to play with Vector.” It also plans to allow developers to customize Vector with new abilities so they can truly make the robot their own.

Hanchar signed off on a positive note for Vector owners, promising that the “best is yet to come” with the social robot.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
NASA has wonderful news for its plucky Mars helicopter
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter made history in April 2021 when it became the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on another planet.

With Mars’ atmosphere much thinner than Earth’s, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) weren’t certain if they could build a machine capable of obtaining lift on the red planet, let alone creating one able to fly reliably. But with its long, fast-spinning blades, Ingenuity has exceeded expectations, flying over long distances during multiple flights.

Read more
Amazon reveals the science behind Astro, its new home robot
Amazon Astro Robot on a wooden floor.

Amazon has unveiled a canine-like home robot assistant called Astro.

The Alexa-powered, wheel-based bot is designed for a range of functions, including home security, communication, entertainment, and transportation (in its slick promo video, it’s seen carrying a beer, though it doesn't have a robotic arm to actually grab one). Astro has a cute look, too, mainly thanks to its big round “eyes” that appear on a display located at the front of the machine.

Read more
AMD CEO has good news about the chip shortage, but you still can’t buy a GPU
AMD CEO Lisa Su holding a graphics card.

After more than a year of bad news, AMD CEO Lisa Su finally has some good news about the chip shortage. Speaking with CNBC, the semiconductor executive said the the chip shortage will improve throughout the second half of 2022, though she warned that supply will remain tight until then.

Although we've mainly focused on the GPU shortage, the implications of the chip shortage reach much further. As Su noted in her interview at the Code Conference tech event, the semiconductor industry has always experienced peaks and valleys in balancing supply and demand. "This time, it’s different," she noted.

Read more