The company is hoping to produce electricity at $13 per megawatt hour, which would be more than 50% cheaper than traditional onshore wind.
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The company is describing the event as “a chance to demo some ChatGPT and GPT-4 updates.”
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This week Boston Dynamics retired its well-known Atlas robot that was powered by hydraulics. Then today it unveiled its new Atlas robot, which is powered by electricity.
The change might not seem like much, but TechCrunch’s Brian Heater told the TechCrunch Minute that the now-deprecated hydraulics system was out of date. It’s not hard to spot why Boston Dynamics, owned by Hyundai, wanted to go electric. Its new Atlas robot is leaner, and appears to have improved range-of-motion. Size and ability to contort and maneuver are not cosmetic elements to a humanoid robot — they can unlock new use cases and possible work environments.
The new Atlas is not incredibly well-defined today, which is not a massive surprise given that it’s still a work in progress. Still, we do know that it will first head to Hyundai factories before hitting the market more generally down the road.
Happily for those of us who want a domestic robot to handle household chores and hold our hands whilst we cry, there are other startups working on the humanoid robot project. Figure, Agility, Tesla, there are too many companies vying for the same prize to note in this short post. Which has me incredibly excited — more people working on the problem means quicker progress, and hopefully faster completion of a general purpose humanoid robot that can learn.
On that last bit, it’s worth keeping in mind that AI is set to play a large role in how robots go from being great at set, repetitive tasks to being able to learn, and do a great deal more without direct programming. While it will take time for LLMs’ ability to ingest language, write code, and the like to connect to robots under development today, you can spot the future if you squint far enough into the distance. To which all I can say is, faster, please!
Former senior SpaceX executive Tom Ochinero is teaming up with SpaceX alum-turned-VC, Achal Upadhyaya, and one of Sequoia’s top finance leaders, Spencer Hemphill, on a new venture called Interlagos Capital, TechCrunch has learned.
There is little public information available about Interlagos, and the trio did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. The company was formally incorporated in the state of Delaware on March 7, and it was registered as an out-of-state company with the state of California only days ago on April 11. Ochinero, Upadhyaya and Hemphill are all listed on the documents. The principal address is in El Segundo, California.
A trademark application for “Interlagos” was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on April 4. That application lists an address identical to the one found on the company’s business registration. The application states that the company will deal in “venture capital services; venture capital funding services, namely, providing financing to emerging and start-up companies.”
Ochinero departed from SpaceX in February after a nearly ten-year stint at the company, where he eventually became senior vice president of commercial business. In that role, he helped SpaceX grow into the undisputed global lead in commercial launch. People familiar with the matter told CNBC at the time that Ochinero was resigning “to attend to a family medical matter.”
With Interlagos, he is teaming up with another SpaceX alum — Upadhyaya — who spent a decade in engineering roles at SpaceX before joining investment firm Cantos as a venture partner in 2022. He left sometime this year, according to his LinkedIn. At Cantos, Upadhyaya’s bets included satellite bus manufacturer Apex Space and motion control system developer Salient Motion, both startups headed by ex-SpaceX founders.
Spencer Hemphill, a finance executive, is rounding out the team. He’s coming from Sequoia, where he also spent ten years. He also departed sometime this year, leaving the firm as assistant controller.
Ochinero is just the latest SpaceX executive to move from the behemoth space company into venture investing. It’s popular enough for people to leave SpaceX to found other companies or invest in them that there’s a website dedicated to connecting the two groups. Other notable investors in the SpaceX-to-VC pipeline include Founders Fund’s Scott Nolan, who was a very early SpaceX employee, and Alpine Space Ventures’ Bulent Alton.
CES 2024 will be here before we know it, taking over Las Vegas with throngs of crowds, booths full of products and a lot of companies making claims about how AI is improving their offerings. As noted in our CES preview, though the conference has had its ups and downs of late, it’s increasingly become an opportunity for startups to capture attention while all eyes are drawn to the bigger budget announcements from the likes of Samsung, Sony and Nvidia.
TechCrunch will be on the ground at CES 2024 throughout the event next week, with a particular focus on those startups that might just be headlining a big livestream of their own in a couple years. You can follow along with our team’s CES coverage across the site and social handles here, but let’s cut to the chase, since we all know those big-name events still matter.
Monday, January 8 will give consumer tech and transportation aficionados plenty to watch starting at 8 a.m. PT / 11 a.m. ET, with many of the highest-profile press conferences being livestreamed to the public as has become the norm. These events will set the stage for the public CES show floor opening January 9 and running through January 12.
As you’ll see in the rundown below, AI will be the big through-line running across almost all of the big events, as CES 2024 marks the first iteration of the event fully in the new AI-centric era.
We’ll keep this list updated as the big day draws closer and as schedules change, but for now, these are the big-ticket companies looking to make a big splash before the convention doors open and CES 2024 begins for in-person attendees Tuesday.
CES is wasting no time in getting to one of the main events. Nvidia is coming into the event riding high on its recent AI-fueled growth. So it’s no surprise Nvidia promises a focus on AI and content creation during their kickoff address at CES.
At the same time, LG will be showcasing its own updates, though they have already shown part of their hand by releasing the details on its new OLED TV lineup, featuring AI processors it claims will significantly improve visual and audio fidelity over prior models. LG will also feature updates on home, mobility and, you guessed it, AI in its CES event.
Asus takes the prize for most hyperbolic CES teaser, as it sets out to put viewers “in search of incredible transcendence.” That’s one way of framing the formal reveal of what Asus already showed to be a new dual-screen laptop design.
Panasonic is leading with their energy and climate policies, in a break from the other companies keeping a big focus on AI reveals.
Honda’s been pretty clear about what to expect from its CES event this year: the reveal of a new EV series, complete with a purple-tinted tease of its form factor. Will that coincide with more details on Honda’s partnership with Sony for the Afeela brand revealed at CES 2023? Time will tell.
The audio company Sennheiser will have their own CES showcase, with a pretty clear focus, promising new headphone announcements from their live stream, which you can watch below.
Hyundai’s most attention-grabbing reveal looks to be an update on its Supernal eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle), which was first showcased back at CES 2020. In addition to its CES kickoff, Hyudai is hosting separate events Tuesday focused solely on the eVTOL concept and its vision for mobility hubs for these flying vehicles to actually take off and land from. Beyond its aerial ambitions, Hyundai will be talking about sustainability, software and of course, AI in a stream that’s planned for, but not yet public on their YouTube channel.
If you’re looking for phone news from Samsung, you’ll have to wait until January 17, when their next Unpacked event will kick off. As has been the case for several years, Samsung will focus on the rest of their product lines at CES 2024.
And those products are about to get the AI push, if their press conference title “AI for All: Connectivity in the Age of AI” wasn’t enough of a signal. Samsung has already revealed some AI applications in the kitchen and in its updated robot vacuum lineup, with more expected from its CES event being livestreamed via their newsroom site.
Samsung also put out some additional teases over the weekend for “new generation of products that can be folded inward and outward,” which would include rollable and foldable displays building off of their existing lines of foldable phones.
Witnessing the Ghostbusters logo wearing a VR headset is just the kind of corporate synergy CES is made for. Sony has highlighted the use of its technology within its film and gaming efforts at past CES events, and by focusing on “Powering Creativity with Technology,” that looks to be the same at CES 2024.
For more CES news as it rolls in, click the banner below to see our entire coverage, or check out some of these highlights from the event:
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