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Robots In Plain English

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Embedded / microcontrollersComputing historyEssays / personal

’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
58 from 28 Jun 2020 to 27 Dec 2025
Posting
now and then (1 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog

2025 1

  1. Revisiting the original Roomba and its simple architecture (2025-12-27)

2024 3

  1. Why our software needs to get back to reality (2024-10-27)
  2. The mis-named, misunderstood chip from a three trillion-dollar corporation (2024-06-23)
  3. Edgar Allan Poe's story that taught me about cryptography (2024-01-21)

2023 4

  1. What should the world's worst industrial disaster from four decades ago teach us? (2023-12-17)
  2. Remembering 1984 and Bhopal (2023-12-10)
  3. My dad built something cool but didn't boast about it (2023-04-23)
  4. How software people are different from hardware people (2023-01-15)

2022 4

  1. What makes AI chatbots so fluent and quick on their feet? (2022-12-18)
  2. Save civil time, and be kind to our engineers (2022-11-20)
  3. One feature puts Amazon's Astro ahead of other mobile robots. (2022-10-16)
  4. Be aware of what Tesla is selling (2022-10-02)

2021 20

  1. This might be the most significant milestone in self-driving cars for decades (2021-12-12)
  2. Why AT&T is sending me a free mobile phone. (2021-11-14)
  3. What is a file? What is a folder? And should you care? (2021-10-22)
  4. That's not how web pages work, Governor. (2021-10-14)
  5. Why Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram went dark yesterday. (2021-10-05)
  6. Automation proceeds not in flashy leaps, but step by step (2021-09-19)
  7. Why Elon Musk still doesn't know what he's talking about (2021-08-29)
  8. Does your espresso machine need a PID controller? (2021-07-25)
  9. Structural designers have to think through every scenario, and they do. (2021-07-04)
  10. Why we shouldn't focus on cyberattacks (2021-05-30)
  11. Why you should not buy an NFT (2021-05-02)
  12. How do you send a software update to a robot--- on Mars? (2021-04-18)
  13. We almost couldn't dislodge the Ever Given from the Suez Canal, until we got some help from the moon. (2021-03-28)
  14. How Klara could be improved. Part 2 on Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro's latest book. (2021-03-14)
  15. How should novelists write about robots? Part 1 on the character Klara in Kazuo Ishiguro's latest book. (2021-03-07)
  16. When Ingenuity leaves its nest, let us hope it perseveres and thrives. (2021-02-21)
  17. The medium dictates that anyone can see the message. (2021-01-31)
  18. We all need to take security seriously. It is mostly a question of trust. (2021-01-24)
  19. Communicating clearly via computers is hard work, much of it in clarifying our languages. (2021-01-10)
  20. Whether delightful or horrifying, these robot dances aren't really adding anything to the conversation. (2021-01-03)

2020 26

  1. Some things in the real world can't wait for a computer to make up its mind. (2020-12-20)
  2. You call an agent intelligent if it's aware of its surroundings. But how can you tell? (2020-12-13)
  3. Apple will use Arm's architecture for its new line of Macs. Software vendors will need to do their part. (2020-12-06)
  4. Neural networks are hot, but AI programmers have other tools in their arsenal. (2020-11-29)
  5. The way computer programs solve problems might not be good enough for the real world. (2020-11-22)
  6. Some tasks are so big that a computer cannot do them fast enough. This is why Google needs so many computers. (2020-11-15)
  7. Similar to a librarian, Google can find documents containing the words you're thinking about. (2020-11-08)
  8. How a quick makeover strings together computer vision, geometric modeling, and computer graphics. (2020-11-01)
  9. How the ideas behind the graphical user interface also created whole new visual media. (2020-10-25)
  10. The excitement over 5G cellular networks is about latency, and it will help robots improve our lives. (2020-10-18)
  11. The surprising Nobel connection between black holes and robot programming. (2020-10-11)
  12. A history lesson: while Machine Learning can find content for you, the content itself can get left behind. (2020-10-04)
  13. How Netflix learns what you like. (2020-09-27)
  14. What the term "artificial intelligence" really means, how it is used, and whether you should be worried. (2020-09-20)
  15. How microcontrollers are ideally adapted to their niche. (2020-09-13)
  16. Why the Linux kernel is now running the world. (2020-09-06)
  17. How can a computer program make something happen in the real world? (2020-08-30)
  18. How we take for granted the best thing to come out of the Cold War (2020-08-23)
  19. When was the last time you checked out a painting in real life? (2020-08-16)
  20. When you're extremely isolated, sometimes you go nuclear. (2020-08-09)
  21. Big robots are safest in cages, but they want to be free. (2020-08-02)
  22. How does an astronomy app work? Using the magic of sensors. (2020-07-26)
  23. How a Segway is similar to a walking robot. (2020-07-19)
  24. Robots are the face of automation. But the intelligence lies in the software. (2020-07-12)
  25. How do Amazon's robots work? Kiva Systems improved the workflow in warehouses with a trick. (2020-07-05)
  26. With the robot dog "Spot," Boston Dynamics has achieved something remarkable. But their real test is still ahead. (2020-06-28)