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Automating the World: Story of George Devol

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Robots have been mankind’s fascination for quite some time. But the last two decades have seen them grow from being a science fiction object to reality. Many industries around the world now employ robots to improve their production lines. Automation is no longer a thing for the future, but rather has become a reality. But how did we first start using robots? Here’s a look at the story of George Devol who developed the first known robot.

About the Creator

George Charles Devol was born in 1912 to a wealthy family based in Kentucky. He did his schooling from the famous Riordan Prep school. Following his graduation, he decided not to go for higher studies. Instead, he went into business and founded United Cinephone in 1932. The company produced recording equipment for motion pictures or talkies. But on discovering that companies such as RCA and Western Electric were also working on similar products, he dropped the idea. When WW2 descended on the US, he was working on a proximity controller for washing machines. Finally, in 1939 he filed for a patent for his RF-based controller. This device was the first of its kind and could open laundry presses automatically. However, due to the war breaking out in Europe, the patent office closed down, and hence, Devol could not get his patent.

Work with Radars

It was around this time that he sold his shares in United Cinephone. Briefly after that, he met with Sperry Gyroscope to discuss his ideas on radars. Sperry then hired him as a Special Projects Manager and allowed him to work on radar devices. As the war intensified, the Auto-Ordnance Company approached him to make products for them. However, Devol turned their attention to the emerging field of radar technology. Later, in 1943, he started working for General Electronics Industries which was a subsidiary of the Auto-Ordnance Corporation. He helped with the production of counter-radar devices. Under his tutelage, General Electronics became the largest producer of radar equipment for the American forces. He resigned soon after the war due to differences in opinion with regards to future products.

Creating Unimate

He followed this up by working as a sales manager at RCA. But, he quit this job as he felt he didn’t fit in and started work on his robot. A year later, in 1946 he created a magnetic recording system and applied for a patent for it. He helped with the creation of the first commercial microwave oven, known as the Speedy Weeny. By the early 1950s, Remington Rand was using Devol’s recording device. Soon enough, he became the manager of their magnetics department. Over there he worked on magnetic recording systems, high-speed printing systems and other such devices. While the idea would not work out, Devol’s magnetic invention later became the Unimate robot.

Patenting and Raising Funds


In 1954, Devol got a patent for his concept of Programmed Article Transfer which would become the basis for Universal Automation or Unimation. Devol’s wife, Evelyn suggested the name Unimate for the robot. At the time of filing the patent, Devol wanted Unimate to be a general-purpose machine. After securing the patent which did not have any citations, Devol looked for an investor. While he talked to many companies, they turned him down due to the risks involved. Finally, using family connections, Devol met with Manning, Maxwell and Moore. Joseph F. Engelberger served as the chief of engineering at Manning, Maxwell and Moore which was based in Connecticut. Engelberger found the project interesting and was about to invest in it. Unfortunately, the company was sold off that year and the plan fell through.

Forming Unimation Incorporated

However, Engelberger convinced Consolidated Diesel Electronic to back the development of the robot. Hence Codec, formed a new division called Unimation Incorporated and Joseph Engelberger served as its president. The first Unimate prototype relied on digital switches and transistors. Further, digital encoders and other electronic parts available in the 1950s were not adequate for the Unimate. Hence, under Devol, a team of engineers built all the parts for the Unimates. Devol as a part of the process invented new technologies such as the rotating drum memory system and parity controls.

In 1961, the first Unimate robot was sold to General Motors to help with die casting and spot welding. In 1961. GM’s plant in New Jersey became the first one to utilise a material handling robot. The robot helped in lifting metal from the die-casting machine and stacking them. Soon enough, companies like Chrysler, Ford, and Fiat started purchasing the Unimate. By 1966, full-scale production facilities were set up in Connecticut and Unimate became a resounding success in the field of material handling.

Resounding Success

By 1975, the company was cash positive and was making a profit. The Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly or PUMA robot came out three years later through a collaboration with GM. Since then, industrial robotics has grown to become a massive field with a lot of large-scale applications. So much so, that in 2003, Unimate became a part of the Robot Hall of Fame for being the first of its kind.

While the first robot took over $5 million to develop, industrial robotics is now a sprawling field. Devol would later go on to obtain several patents on visual sensors and magnetostrictive manipulators. He is hence, known for creating the field of “micro-robotics”. George Devol was 9 years old when the word robot was coined. Decades later, he would be the one to invent the first programmable robot, which in turn, started a revolution that continues even today. With over 40 active patents to his name, Devol spent his life-giving wings to his ideas and turning them into real products.

Nikola Tesla

Guiding the Future: Story of Nikola Tesla

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Remote controls are without a doubt something that symbolises modern technologies. Most electrical devices we use come with a remote of their own, and most of us own at least a dozen remotes. We have remotes scattered on our coffee tables and even access devices from remotes on our phones now. Although we associate remotes to TVs, they were a staple long before that. So how did the remote control come to be? Read on to find out more about the history, origins and story of remote control systems.

About the Creator

Nikola Tesla was born in Lika in 1856 to an Eastern Orthodox priest who had an interest in mechanical appliances. He attended a primary school in Smiljan and completed his high-school from the Higher Real Gymnasium. His physics teacher inculcated in him an interest in electronics, and that would life-long passion for Tesla. He was a prodigy while at school, being able to do integral calculus in his head. Tesla ran away from home in the 1870s to evade enrolment into the Austro-Hungarian Army.

He then joined the Austrian Polytechnic and learnt electrical engineering but received no degree. Rather, he gained practical knowledge working for Central Telegraph Office in Budapest and the Continental Edison. In 1884, he shifted to the United States and worked for Edison Machine Works. He left soon after, setting out to form his laboratories and companies. His patent for an AC motor through Westinghouse Electric earned him large sums of money, which he utilised to fund his research. During the 1890s, Tesla pushed for wireless lighting and communication, becoming a pioneer in the field. with his devices.

The Famous Boat Experiment

Famous American inventor Nikola Tesla created the world’s first wireless remote control. He unveiled the system at Madison Square Garden in 1898 to much awe from the public. He called the system, which could control several mechanical devices, a tele automaton. To demonstrate his new invention, Tesla used a boat and controlled it via radio waves using a small metal antenna. Tesla sent radio signals to the using a version of remote control. The box consisted of a lever and a telegraph key and generated signals. These signals moved electrical contacts on the boat, adjusting the rudder, thereby controlling it.

Idea Catches On

Financially though, Tesla’s system was a flop. He planned on selling the system to the U.S. Navy, but the contraption was too unreliable for use in war. However, the idea caught on and spread like wild-fire to other equipment. Following in Tesla’s footsteps, Leonardo Torres-Quevedo devised a system utilising wireless telegraphs. With this system he first controlled a tricycle, then a boat, and later even submarine torpedoes.

Acts of War

These inventors led the way for the concept of remote controls. In World War I, Germany made use of such boats to launch attacks against the opposition. Hence, remote controls were the start of a new kind of warfare, which saw armies fight from a distance. During World War II, both the Germans and the Allies used several guided torpedoes and missiles.

Part of Our Lives

By the end of the 1940s though, remote controls became a part of consumer electronics, like garage doors and toys. Soon enough, several products started using technology, radically changing the technological landscape. Afterwards, Philco started production of radios utilising a wireless, battery-powered remote known as the Mystery Control. The most significant contribution, however, was of Zenith who introduced the Lazy Bones remote. Soon after, Eugene Polley made the Flashmatic TV remote, which made use of light technology.

Resounding Success

A few years later, Robert Adler, created a system which made use of ultrasonic sound in place of light. This new remote was more expensive but was still a resounding success. These clicker remotes forever changed the nature of the interaction between customers and electronic devices. It gave people the power to change channels without having to rise from their seats. Ever since then, remotes have been continually evolving, making use of IR technology, and even universal remote technology.
In 1898, the world had little understanding of Tesla’s brilliant idea. But in the years to come, the spark he started grew to become a raging flame. His innovation paved the way for future inventors to build a system that changed the world.

cleverbot

Story of Cleverbot and Rollo Carpenter

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Google Assistant surely helps us by setting reminders, sending texts, playing music and calling people on behalf of us. These are just a few things from the ample of benefits it provides. But, have you ever experienced a friendly conversation with a machine without realizing that you are talking to one.

Almost every smartphone users at least once tried to have a funny conversation with either Google or Siri, but after some point, it becomes evident that we are talking to a human-built program. The replies from the bot are not always friendly and not how humans speak to each other. This is where the true power of AI was unleashed by Rollo Carpenter when he came up with Cleverbot.

Cleverbot, a web application to serve the purpose of a chatbox was created by Rollo Carpenter. The application went public in 1997 and even passed the Turing Test with 59.3% accuracy while the minimum criterion is 30%. The application is developed entirely based on AI algorithm. It was built to serve the humans by chatting where the latter one won’t feel like it is speaking to a bot at all.

Rollo Carpenter

Having played the role of managing director for more than one company, Rollo Carpenter did some excellent works throughout his career. Born in 1965, Carpenter started his career as the co-founder of Bizfinity Inc. Through the years, Carpenter vehemently experimented with AI and ML and came up with the idea of developing a chatbox.

His main motive was to build AI-based software that can learn from the conversations carried out with humans and reply accordingly. When Cleverbot was developed, it initially conversed with Carpenter and his associates and it turned out to be very friendly and entertaining.

In 2005 and 2006, Carpenter acquired the first position in Loebner Prize Contest for his AI-based software. In October 2005, Carpenter joined Icogno Ltd as its Managing Director followed by acquiring the same position in Existor Ltd after three years. Carpenter launched his project, Jabberwacky to create AI-based entertaining chatbox and hence Cleverbot was launched as one of its product.

About Jabberwacky

Carpenter started working on Jabberwacky since 1986. He launched Cleverbot in 1997 as a product of his project, Jabberwacky. Today, Cleverbot is nothing but the updated and modified version of Jabberwacky in the market.

Carpenter started programming for a very young age and became quite impressive in managing databases at an early teen. The idea of programming a chatbot clicked in his mind when he was working with these hardcore programming languages.

The first strategy that came into his mind was building a feedback system for the bot which will help it learn from the humans. His main goal was to make the chatbot learn from humans today and implement on them tomorrow.

When Jabberwacky went online in 1997, the bot received almost 20,000 entries and carried out different conversations with every individual. In 2003, Jabberwacky crossed more than a million interactions which turned up to 150 million in 2019.

The most unique feature of this chatbot is its model is based on AI. When you speak to Google Assistant you might notice that after a certain point of time it keeps repeating a particle sequence. This elaborates the fact that any normal chatbot has a particular pattern easily distinguishable by humans. But, Jabberwacky has proved that its borrowed intelligence makes it different from most of them.

Jabberwacky’s new version, Cleverbot performed so well in convincing humans that they are not talking to a program that it passed the Turing Test with a whopping 59%.

Cleverbot

After the Cleverbot went online and passed the Turing Test a lot of modifications have been done to it. The test was conducted by IIT Guwahati on 3rd September 2011. It was declared a success when it entertained and fooled around 59.3% of participants to be exact. Since Cleverbot saved the responses from previous human interactions it improvised itself every day.

Today, Cleverbot can easily carry out around 7 million interactions at a time efficiently. Since 2014 Cleverbot has started using GPU techniques. The entire team is working on launching a new version of the chatbox implementing machine learning. Carpenter, in an interview, said that the data accumulated is more important for the software since the stored data helps it responds differently.

Broadcom

Broadcom, Success story of the communication industry

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Semiconductors are an integral part of the broadband communication industry. Products like integrated circuits, wireless networks, cable modems are in huge demand today because of the rising efficient in existing technology and making it accessible to every corner of the world.

Pioneering in the world of communication engineering, Henry Samueli along with Henry Nicholas co-founded Broadcom Corporation in 1991. The company was built mainly to produce semiconductors and products that can contribute to today’s communication system.

The company came under the acquisition of Avago Technologies in 2016 and is currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of Broadcom Inc. Headquartered in Irvine, California; Broadcom has made more than twenty big acquisitions till date and listed as Gartner’s Top 10 Semiconductor Vendors.

Henry Samueli

Samueli’s Jewish parents moved to the United States with nothing but lucky enough to survive in the Nazi terror land. The family ran a liquor store in Los Angeles and this is where Samueli grew up. He went to Bancroft Junior High School followed by Fairfax High School.

His great interest in electronics started growing inside him since he was a child and he built a radio all by himself in junior school. He went to UCLA School of Engineering to complete his graduation and passed with all the three successive degrees from Bachelor’s to PhD from this very place.

Samueli studied Electrical Engineering and after completing his PhD he joined UCLA as a professor. This is where he met Henry Nicholas who was a PhD scholar at UCLA. Apart from being an engineer, Samueli is also a great philanthropist who is the founding director of the Samueli Foundation, a non-profit organization. Recently, Samueli has donated $100 million for the development of UCLA.

Henry Nicholas

Nicholas was born to a prosperous family in Cincinnati, Ohio. When he was four years old, his parents got divorced and he moved to Los Angeles, California with his mother and sister. Nicholas did his junior years schooling from Malibu and later went to Santa Monica High School.

Nicholas pursued his degree in Electrical Engineering from UCLA and before that went to the United States Air Force Academy. Nicholas received his Master’s degree from UCLA as well and got admitted for the PhD program under Samueli.

After completing his PhD, Nicholas moved to Cerritos and joined PairGain Technologies as Director of Microelectronics. But he left the company soon and joined his business partner who was also his advisor to co-found Broadcom.

History of Broadcom

In the beginning, both Samueli and Nicholas invested $5,000 from their pocket to start this business. They didn’t have a proper workplace and temporarily worked at Nicholas’s beach house. It’s a good thing one of them was a bit richer. After a year of rigorous hard work, both of them were finally able to rent an office in Westwood.

This was Broadcom Corporation’s first office which was shifted to Irvine three years later. The company went public in 1998 and made a kick-off start with serving more than fifteen countries around the world.

In 2009, the company was listed in the Fortune 500 and by this time Broadcom hired more than 11,000 employers. At the end of 2013, the company’s annual revenue summed up to a massive figure of $8.01 billion with its ranking coming down to 327 in Fortune 500.

Acquisitions

Broadcom has got a never-ending list of acquisitions starting from 1999. The company mainly bought other small semiconductor companies and networking companies like Maverick Networks, Epigram, Altocom, BlueSteel Networks and many more. Some biggest acquisitions before the company was sold were in 2000 and 2011. The company bought Silicon Spice and NetLogic Microsystems for $1 billion and $3.7 billion respectively.

End of an Era

The company which achieved a great deal of success for more than two decades came under the acquisition of Avago Technologies in 2015. The company was sold for $37 billion with Samueli becoming the CTO of the newly merged company and Nicholas playing the role of strategic advisor. After all the legal works were completed by February 2016, Cypress Semiconductor bought Broadcom’s entire IoT sector in May 2016. The acquisition was made for $550 million.

It was estimated that after the merging, Broadcom Inc. (present parent company) would have an estimated market value of $77 billion.

Broadcom Inc

The company was formerly known as Avago Technologies, that is, from 1961. Tan Hock Eng is the current CEO of the company with more than 15,000 employers to date. According to the records of 2018, the company’s annual revenue is $20.84 billion.

Oneplus

Oneplus, A Company To Outweigh All Its Competitors In Six Years

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Well, I admit there is a particular group of people who drools over the products of Apple but did you guys not see how strategically OnePlus became the premium mobile brand around the world. Leaving iOS aside, OnePlus to date has become the best mobile company with Android OS because the founders wanted to improve the existing user experience cost-effectively.

Before OnePlus was launched in 2013, Samsung and Nokia mobiles ruled in the world of Android OS smartphones. But, brands like these faced an unexpected downfall when OnePlus started setting the market on fire with its alluring flagship products.OnePlus was launched in 16th December 2013 by Pete Lau and Carl Pei. The company is based on China and currently, its annual revenue is $1.9 billion.

Pete Lau

Lau passed out from Zhejiang University in 1998 and joined Oppo Electronics. He worked there as a hardware engineer and with time became the director of Oppo’s Blu-ray division. Attaining the peak of his career just started with his promotion to the position of head of marketing of Oppo. Lau was soon named as the Vice President of the company and he was solely responsible for incorporating Android OS in Oppo smartphones. He stepped down from his position and quit Oppo in November 2013.

Carl Pei

Pei went to Stockholm School of Economics to pursue his Bachelor’s degree in Science but he dropped out soon and started working in the smartphone industry. Before he dropped out of college, he started working at Nokia and continued for three months. In 2011, Pei joined Meizu and worked there as a full-time employee. After a year, Pei joined Oppo in 2012 and started working there as an international market manager. Pei worked under Lau and both of them together came up with the idea of OnePlus.

A café conversation

The idea of OnePlus exclusively and solely came out of a coffee table conversation while discussing smartphones and how the user experience can be made better. The founders noticed that most of the population tends to use the iPhone and not Android. The question was why? Aftermarket research and recording the feedbacks of users, they concluded that most of them either have faulty software or the quality is not up to the mark. So, both of them started their new start-up and at the beginning OnePlus only had five employees.

Launch and Success

When the two of them were working on their new project of OnePlus, their main motive was to build a product with a minimal amount of cost and which can provide the best user experience. When they were ready with the product, the strategy of launching was very off-track. They didn’t want to sell the product through conventional retailers and pursued the audience in an only way.

The marketing experts said that the idea might face a strict downfall as the model was based on high priced subscription method. But, the prediction was proved wrong when OnePlus breaking the records of every successful mobile company ever sold 1.5 million OnePlus smartphones in a single year.

The product became famous as the “Flagship killer” and the magnitude of success was enormous. Lau expected 50,000 units sell and it crossed millions. The first product was OnePlus One and it was first marketed outside China in 2015. OnePlus expanded to South-East Asia after they partnered with Lazada Indonesia.

The next product of OnePlus, OnePlus 2 was released in July 2015. The next year company lifted the invite-only system on OnePlus 3 followed by making it available in the markets of China, North America, the European Union and also in Amazon India.

The company’s profit became thrice in the financial year 2017-2018 and the annual revenue almost increased to five times within a single year. The company’s goal turned out to become a huge success as most of the users rated their smartphones 4 stars or more.

In early 2018, the launch of OnePlus 6 broke into the market like a plague and even outran the market for Apple iPhone. Within the next half of the year, OnePlus 6 became the highest selling flagship product of the company.

India majorly contributes to the success of OnePlus products as Lau (CEO of OnePLus) said in an interview that India is accountable for OnePlus’s 2018s global revenue of $1.4 billion.

autocad

Drafting the Future: Success of CAD

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Mechanical engineers rely on computer-aided d for most of their drafting. Most of the products we see around us use principles of CAD/CAM to generate prototypes. The world would not have so many innovative products, buildings and manufacturing tools if not for CAD. But who came with an idea to use computers for drafting? How did the Engineering Graphics we know, evolve to the stage is it has reached now? So, read on to know more about the success story of computer-aided design.

About the Creator

The American computer scientist, Patrick J. Hanratty, is commonly called the Father of CAD/CAM. He founded and served as the President of Manufacturing and Consulting Services Arizona. As per records, more than 70% of the CAD software we use now, is linked to Hanratty’s works.
Patrick J. Hanratty discovered his love for programming by accident! After serving his country during the Korean War, he returned home to figure out his future. One day, while going through the newspaper, Hanratty saw an ad for programmers in San Diego. He took up the offer and was hired at General Dynamic’s Convair Division, picking up programming along the way.

Hanratty earned a PhD from the University of California for his work on magnetic ink character recognition. He then worked for General Electric during the 1950s. In 1957, he wrote one of the first numerical control languages called Pronto. Further, in 1961 he switched to General Motors Research Laboratories. It was here that he helped in developing Design Automated by Computer. Later, he used GE’s equipment to standardise the characters used on bank checks. The American Bankers Association adopted this system in 1958, and their E-13B font is a standard in the industry.

Founding a Design Company

He found ICS in the 1970s as his first venture. Their first product was a CAD/CAM drafting tool which needed a computer few people owned. Also, the program for the tool was in TPL, a complicated language. He tried again in 1971, founding Manufacturing and Consulting Services. MCS wrote their software using Fortran, and their tools ran on most computers.

He named the product Automated Drafting and Machining, switched to AD-2000, and then Anvil-4000. Some of their famous clients were Computervision, Gerber Scientific and McDonnell Douglas. Furthermore, MCS built most of the popular CAD/CAM packages we use now. These include Auto-Grapl, Autosnap 3D, and Intelligent Modeler.

History of CAD

The CAD we know and love today is based on both PRONTO and Ivan Sutherland’s SKETCHPAD. Both these tools demonstrated the feasibility of computer-aided technical drawing. The initial CAD systems worked like replacements to drawing boards. Designers still used splines and arcs to create their drawings, but their productivity increased. Nevertheless, such modifications made CAD more affordable and user-friendly.

With the release of MAGI’s Syntha Vision, 3D features became popular. The sixties saw the rise of solid modelling and NURBS, which came in 1989, made solid modelling an industry standard. CAS Berlin developed NöRBS, a NURB-based PC software in 1993, and changed the industry forever. The 1980’s witnessed the development of parametric modelling. This led to a more intuitive, user-friendly and price method of modelling.

Present Day CAD

Most industries now rely heavily on computer-aided design and manufacturing software. They find use in almost all stages of design and production, and also help in engineering analysis. The systems have undergone massive changes, and simple desktops have replaced the bulky workstations. 3D Modelling is no longer a luxury, but rather a gold-standard and wire-frame models are rarely used anymore.

The application of computer-aided design has grown in recent years. It is not just a part of the design process anymore. But rather finds use in applications such as Google Maps to create outlines and plans of buildings. Also, Finite Element Analysis has grown to become the industry standard when it comes to engineering analysis. The structural integrity of all designs is tried and tested using this method.

Hanratty was an early pioneer of NC and CAD/CAM and changed the way the industry worked. If not for him, we would still be relying on physical drafting tools to design products. From being something used by a wealthy few, to becoming an industry-standard, CAD has come a long way. The future looks bright for the software, as more and more researchers work to innovate and improve the field.