12-18-2017, 11:57 AM
A few years ago, Amazon.com Inc. triggered a robot arms race when it purchased a company called Kiva Systems, maker of automated warehouse robots. Now its would-be rivals are landing bigger and bigger cash injections to try to compete with the e-commerce giant. Locus Robotics, a spinoff of a warehouse company that decided to build its own robots after the Amazon deal in 2012, raised another $25 million in venture capital, bringing its total funding to more than $33 million, the company announced last week. The new cash for Locus followed a $15 million injection in July for 6 River Systems Inc., a robotics company founded by ex-Kiva executives. In March, China warehouse robotics startup Geek+, which boasts Alibaba as a client, raised $22 million. Competitor RightHand added $8 million in venture funding this year as well.
Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon - Bloomberg
RRobots are undeniably decimating jobs in certain industries—but the news isn’t necessarily all bad. A new report by Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work lays out 21 new kinds of jobs that will be created in the next 10 years, employing large swaths of people impacted by automation. All the jobs fall under three main areas: coaching people to expand their skills, caring for others to improve their health, and connecting human and machine. Some job titles sound like terms pulled from a science fiction novel—positions like “genetic portfolio manager,” “personal memory curator,” “digital tailor,” and “AI-assisted health-care technician,” for example..