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Haptikos Emerges From Stealth First Low-Cost Hand Exoskeleton

I’ve been watching developments of robotics and peripherals with anticipation. Engineers continually get closer to mechanisms that can make life so much better for handicapped or aged people. Not to mention extensive use cases in manufacturing.

This news concerns a company emerging from stealth with a hand exoskeleton with exciting sensory input along with a its operating system (Alan Kay—People who are really serious about software should build their hardware.).

Haptikos (Sunnyvale, CA and Athens) emerged from stealth January 27 at the 1st Annual MIT Experiential Innovation Event in Cambridge, MA. The company specifically announced a groundbreaking new hand exoskeleton, which is part of the Haptikos ecosystem of integrated hardware and software (priced at $2,500 per evaluation unit and available singly as well), with the eventual goal of a sub-$1000 final price point by 2026 when the final production units ship. 

Partnered with the company’s AI-infused Haptik_OS (immediately available for license), the exoskeleton and OS combination brings a complete sense of touch to VR and AR apps and use cases. Hepaticas exoskeleton prototypes are already in use by leading companies such as Siemens and Leonardo and are designed for markets ranging from medical, defense and robotics. Whether it’s a single drop of water or the pulse of a heartbeat, Haptikos makes every virtual interaction deeply immersive and allows users to “touch tomorrow, today.”

Haptikos Exoskeleton:

The exoskeleton prototype makes it possible to feel the distinct sensations of different materials, from smooth surfaces to intricate textures. Whether handling virtual objects in training or design, Haptikos makes digital environments feel tangible and lifelike, enhancing overall realism. With a rise of 12 ms and a fall time of 55 ms, Haptikos ensures every touch and interaction feels immediate and smooth.

The Haptikos hand exoskeleton has 24 Degrees of Freedom per hand (DoF), with sub-millimeter motion accuracy and 8 hours continuous usage that is unmatched in the industry, even by long-shipping commercial alternatives. With control over every joint, users are ensured of lifelike movements from the most delicate gestures to the most complex actions.

Included in the exoskeleton are:

  • Tracking sensors
  • Haptic sensors
  • Kinaesthetic sensors (will be added later in 2025)

Through these sensors, Haptikos tracks the movement of each hand joint with incredible detail. This means full, natural control over every motion, from finger curls to complex hand gestures, making digital interactions feel fluid and intuitive. With sub-millimeter precision, Haptikos captures even the smallest user motions. 

This high level of accuracy ensures that every gesture, no matter how subtle, is translated into the virtual world with fidelity.

HAPTIK_OS:

The haptik_OS app is the central hub for connecting Haptikos exoskeleton and seamlessly integrating their capabilities into projects and motion control, redirecting this data into the acclaimed Unity® Software Development Kit (SDK) with ease.

The haptik_OS is itself at the core of the Haptikos ecosystem, connecting developers, designers, and end-users to create lifelike, intuitive and immersive experiences. Through built-in AI functionality, haptik_OS automatically adapts pre-built libraries into new haptic XR applications in Unity, simplifying both integration and scaling.

The haptik_OS is available immediately via three tiers of license: 

  • Freemium: Basic tools for developers to start exploring.
  • Basic Tier: SDK for integration into applications.
  • Pro Tier: Full access to AI-driven tools for automated customization.

Quotes:

“Haptikos exoskeletons have expanded the training program for the postpartum balloon procedure,” said Dr. Aoife Mcevoy, Specialist Registrar & Clinical Tutor in Obstetrics & Gynaecology National Maternity Hospital | UCD School of Medicine. “Both clinicians and students experienced a significant improvement in their procedural skills following the use of Haptikos. The realistic tactile feedback and precise control enabled by Haptikos allowed for a more immersive and effective learning experience, greatly enhancing trainee confidence levels in their skillset for this critical procedure.”

“Haptikos really impressed the entire MIT Innovation Technology team with their advanced haptics, and we are extremely pleased they saw the value of launching at our premiere event in tandem with the MIT Reality Hack,” said Maria Rice, Executive Director of the MIT Reality Hack. “Haptics have been a long-overlooked component of a complete XR solution, and their combination of haptics, operating system and AI combined with the industry-leading Unity SDK is a win for all developers seeking the next XR frontier.”

“We are extremely excited to finally be emerging from stealth in the hallowed halls of MIT, where their slogan of “mens et manus” – Latin for “to mind and hand” – has taken on a new and very literal meaning,” said Greg Agriopoulos, CEO and co-founder of Haptikos, Inc. “Competitive haptics solutions are normally glove-based, and never fit correctly on most hands – our exoskeleton fits everyone perfectly, is far more accurate, far less costly and is the only solution coupled with an actual software solution that makes it genuinely useful across a range of markets.”

Deepgram Empowers Developers From Startups to Global Enterprises to Build Voice AI

[I have two websites where I write blogs. This one started in December, 2003. My other one began in 2012. Across the two sites, this is my 7,000th post.]

New companies with new ideas continue to drift into my vision. This news relates to developers and managers who see the potentials for their products if a reliable Voice AI could be added. This technology whets my old product development appetites for new products or enhanced applications. The company is called Deepgram. It has some pretty impressive credentials. If you’re an innovative thinker looking for a way to jump start your application, take a look at this.

Deepgram marketing sent a quick summary of their 2024.

AI Company Ends 2024 Cash-flow Positive with 400+ Enterprise Customers, 3.3x Annual Usage Growth Across the Past Four Years, Over 50,000 Years of Audio Processed, and Over One Trillion Words Transcribed.

The company’s tools include speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS), and full speech-to-speech (STS) offerings.

“2024 was a stellar year for Deepgram, as our traction is accelerating and our long-term vision of empowering developers to build voice AI with human-like accuracy, human-like expressivity, and human-like latency is materializing,” said Scott Stephenson, CEO of Deepgram. “Our product strategy from founding has been to focus on deep-tech first, and the work we have done in building 3-factor automated model adaptation, extreme compression on latent space models (LSMs), hosting models with efficient and unrestricted hot-swapping, and symmetrical delivery across public cloud, private cloud, or on-premises, uniquely positions us to succeed in the $50B market for voice AI agents in demanding environments requiring exceptional accuracy, lowest COGS, highest model adaptability, and lowest latency.” 

Deepgram expects to end 2025 as the industry’s only end-to-end speech-to-speech solution built to solve the four critical challenges of enterprise-ready voice AI:

  • Accuracy / audio perception: Enterprise use cases require high recognition, understanding, and generation of specialized vocabulary in often challenging audio conditions. Deepgram solves this through novel, non-lossy compressions of these spaces for rapid processing paired with generation, training, and evaluation on synthetic data that precisely matches Deepgram customers’ real-world conditions.
  • COGS at scale: Deepgram customers need to profitably build and scale voice AI solutions. Deepgram delivers this through its unique latent audio model with extreme compression combined with deep expertise in high-performance computing.
  • Latency: Real-time conversation requires near-instantaneous responses. Deepgram achieves this using streaming state space model architectures, optimized specifically for the underlying hardware to deliver minimal processing delays.
  • Context: Effective conversations are deeply contextualized. Deepgram will pass the speech Turing test thanks to its ability to train on vast bodies of data that thoroughly represent its customers’ use cases and pass that context through the entire system and interaction.

MES for Lean Manufacturing

I’ve long been interested in the confluence of automation, software, and Lean. I reached out to a few leading Lean practitioners and consultants for the first issue of Automation World in 2003. They responded that Lean is a manual process and any hint that automation or software would be useful was unthinkable.

I convinced a couple that trustable data was essential for Lean and that data coming directly from the automation was trustable. So, I ran a Lean article for issue 1 revisiting the topic at times throughout my 10 years as editor there.

This article from Inductive Automation’s blog came my way the other day. It is a good look at the current state of MES and Lean. I’ll highlight a few topics. Check it out yourself.

Using MES Powered By Ignition To Accelerate Lean Manufacturing Goals by Danny Haskell, NeoMatrix, Inc., guest author.

Staying competitive means manufacturers constantly seek ways to enhance operational efficiency, minimize costs and waste, and maintain the highest standards of product quality. Whether a manufacturer is just beginning to explore manufacturing execution systems (MES) or looking to optimize an existing MES infrastructure, and whether they use Sepasoft’s MES modules for the lean manufacturing software Ignition or build their own custom MES solutions, Ignition MES offers manufacturers a versatile solution to streamline production, improve visibility, and accelerate lean manufacturing initiatives across the factory floor.

Data remains the key

Driven by advancements in Digital Transformation and the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies, MES solutions enable real-time data integration and enhanced automation, significantly improving production processes and promoting lean manufacturing. Manufacturers adopting MES solutions have reported improvements in operational efficiency of 15-20% and reductions in production lead times of 10-15%.

Haskell identifies some key trends:

  • Predictive Maintenance: MES technology helps manufacturers anticipate equipment failures before they occur, reducing downtime and maintenance costs.
  • Digital Twins: Manufacturers use digital twins to create virtual replicas of manufacturing processes and equipment, enabling manufacturers to simulate and optimize operations without physical testing.
  • Reshoring and Local Production: With supply chain disruptions and the need for resilience, some manufacturers are reshoring their operations to reduce the reliance on overseas suppliers and enhance supply chain flexibility.
  • Sustainability and Carbon Neutrality: Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives push manufacturers to adopt sustainable practices, such as reducing emissions, using renewable energy, and adopting eco-friendly production processes.
  • Industrial Automation and Robotics: Manufacturers integrating robots and AI enable more autonomous and smart manufacturing processes, improving productivity and precision. This trend also extends to collaborative robots (cobots) that work alongside human employees to streamline operations.
  • Advanced Data Analytics and AI: Utilizing data analytics and AI to monitor production, improve quality control, and predict maintenance needs is becoming increasingly important to optimize processes and make data-driven decision-making.
  • Cloud Computing and IIoT: Adopting cloud solutions and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies, manufacturers can connect machines, systems, and processes for better data sharing and real-time monitoring.

He continues with several specific examples. Check it out for yourself.

When CEOs Make a Pitch

Mike Maples, Jr. appeared on this week’s podcast episode of Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People. Maples is a seed round venture capitalist. He talked of his hits and misses.

Most interesting to me came from Kawasaki’s question about what he looks for when an entrepreneur comes in to make a pitch. I’ve listened to CEOs and other executives for 25 years come in to pitch me on the value of writing about their companies. Maples’ answer resonated.

What the VC most wants to know is what’s the product. What are you doing? Why should anyone care? Who has validated the idea?

Don’t come in with 20 slides about market and millennials and competitors and the like. Don’t wait until slide 24 to say what you’re doing. By then, you’ve lost the game.

I don’t remember who the perpetrator was, but I painfully recall a meeting in the Automation World offices around 2010. 

The CEO came in with a PowerPoint deck. Only he and I were in the conference room. After about 20 slides about his bio and the company bio and the market, I interrupted to ask what they did. He said, wait until slide 35. I’ll get to it. I told him I knew the market and the technology landscape. Just tell me what you do.

I’ve found software spokespeople especially susceptible to this disease. It’s as if they are embarrassed by the paucity of the “advancement.” They need to snow you with big words. They seem reluctant to get into the “what’s new” part.

I’m glad to find I have big-time company in my attitude toward these presentations.

Tell me (or anyone) what you’re doing, what’s the product (or service), why should anyone care. If it’s a tech thing, I enjoy knowing the underlying technology—but only after you have my attention with what you do.

Leaseweb Boosts AI-focused Infrastructure Portfolio with Launch of New NVIDIA GPU Solutions

I wrote about a company new to me from The Netherlands thanks to a media relations person I’ve known for quite some time. Leaseweb Global provides cloud services and Infrastructure as a Service. They are back with an announcement regarding adding NVIDIA L4, L40S and H100 NVL GPUs to its infrastructure portfolio. 

Through this offering, Leaseweb notes it is meeting the compute needs of a wide variety of sectors – including the Artificial Intelligence (AI), Media & Entertainment and Gaming industries – at a price point that enables significant cost savings when compared to the wider marketplace.  

Available across Leaseweb’s entire global network, spanning the European, North American and Asia Pacific regions, the expanded GPU offering supports customers with a scalable, efficient deployment framework optimized for high-performance computing (HPC), ranging from AI model training and video analytics to graphics processing and video rendering functionality. Leaseweb’s new NVIDIA GPU solution aims to help customers improve their operations, reduce costs, and enhance computational speed for demanding workloads. The announcement also underlines Leaseweb’s commitment to meeting the demand for powerful infrastructure solutions with industry benchmark performance chips that can be deployed within hours to ensure high availability service provision.

This marks the next step in Leaseweb’s journey to providing a complete AI offering for its customers, which will include integration into Leaseweb’s public cloud and broader set of infrastructure solutions. By providing a comprehensive, scalable solution for a wide variety of workloads, Leaseweb is reinforcing its position as a trusted partner for organizations focused on balancing price with performance and availability. With further plans to integrate this offering into its broader solutions suite, the company is strongly positioned to become a leading provider of GPU infrastructure, supporting customers as they invest in these transformational technologies.

“This announcement represents an important step for customers where GPU availability is increasingly important and will give organizations around the world the price/performance flexibility they need, as soon as they need it,” commented Liat Mendelson Honderdors, Principal Product Manager, AI and GPU at Leaseweb.

“Our customers value Leaseweb’s extensive industry expertise as they plan and deploy infrastructure for their most processor-intensive workloads. With considerations ranging from price and performance to data sovereignty and compliance, Leaseweb’s solutions and state-of-the-art global network means we are ideally suited to helping our customers grow their business and expand into new markets, even at hours’ notice. By incorporating best-in-class NVIDIA technology into our infrastructure portfolio, we’re laying the foundation for a broader solution set that will continue to evolve with customer needs,” Mendelson Honderdors concluded.

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