Paris, France — Aldebaran Robotics SA, the world-leading European humanoid robotics company,announced today that the company has raised $13 million in new venture funding.
The series C round of financing was led by Intel Capital, with additional participation from its current investors, CDC Innovation, iSOURCE and CAPE. Aldebaran Robotics currently manufactures and sells advanced, programmable humanoid robots, with the aim of contributing to the well-being of humans, through solutions addressing Personal services, Healthcare and Assistance to Autistic kids. Its products combine a range of facial and voice recognition technologies with location awareness capabilities, providing a flexible platform for application development. The new funds will play a key role in allowing the business to develop its product offering into additional vertical sectors such as health and social care. The investment will also help Aldebaran streamline its production operations and increase its research and development capabilities.
“Working with Intel Capital is a step we believe will propel the business and help the technology we have developed reach its full potential. Our products have the flexibility to provide solutions across a range of applications and this investment will play a huge role in helping drive manufacturing efficiencies and further our research capabilities to help the business’ expansion into new markets. Intel products are ideally suited for the processing demands required by robotics. This investment from Intel Capital enables Aldebaran to become a key player in this nascent industry.” , Bruno Maisonnier, founder and CEO of Aldebaran Robotics said; “It is primarily for us, a fantastic mark of recognition and trust from a group that has always favored innovation and has risen in recent years at the top of the global computer market”.
Intel, world leader in silicon innovation, demonstrates its interest in robotics by investing in Aldebaran Robotics, the world-leading company in humanoid robotics. Marcos Battisti, Managing Director Intel Capital Western Europe and Israel, commented: “Robotics is an area that Intel Capital has been interested in for some time. Aldebaran’s work in areas such as voice interaction and video analytics really highlights the advances made in perceptual computing and has the potential to offer innovative products and solutions across a range of sectors.”
(source:
NaoForge)
Posted:
07/06/2011 23:03:12
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Carl
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I have been playing with some of the face recognition and camera features of Nao over the last few days, and I must confess it has been a lot of fun. Nao has the ability to recognise a human face using it's built in camera and also can take photographs. With the fact Nao is internet connect, we have been able to combine the features to create a little program that lets Nao take pictures of the people he meets and share them on the web.
Basically, when Nao recognises a face he politely asks if he can take a photograph for his website. If the person agrees (just by saying 'yes', voice recognition does the rest) Nao snaps a photograph and uploads it to his website. His website happens to be a page of this website so you can see the half a dozen test pictures we have taken so far here.
We were also quite surprised that he recognised a Gorilla's face and also a face in a photo.
A photo he took when meeting my brother is below:
Posted:
02/06/2011 17:11:55
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Carl
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