Welcome to Episode 95 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. This week, cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the recent unveiling of the Tesla Optimus bipedal robot at the Tesla AI Days 2022 event. We also learn about the latest in warehouse and logistics automation in an interview with Swisslog USA President, Markus Schmidt. If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

It's all too common to find hackable flaws in medical devices, from mammography machines and CT scanners to pacemakers and insulin pumps. But it turns out that the potential exposure extends into the walls: Researchers have found almost a dozen vulnerabilities in a popular brand of pneumatic tube delivery system that many hospitals use to to carry and distribute vital cargo like lab samples and medicine. Pneumatic tubes may seem like wonky and antiquated office tech, more suited to The Hudsucker Proxy than a modern-day health care system. Swisslog Healthcare, a prominent medical-focused pneumatic tube system maker, says that more than 2,300 hospitals in North America use its "TransLogic PTS" platform, as do 700 more elsewhere in the world. The nine vulnerabilities that researchers from the embedded device security company Armis found in Swisslog's Translogic Nexus Control Panels, though, could let a hacker take over a system, take it offline, access data, reroute deliveries, or otherwise sabotage the pneumatic network.

Robots will help H-E-B grocery stores keep up with the growing demand for online grocery services amid the pandemic. The San Antonio, Texas-based grocery chain has partnered with the automation firm Swisslog to deploy a number of robots to support the chain's curbside pick-up and delivery business. Swisslog is providing warehouses that use modular "Autostore" robots to fulfill small online orders, the companies said in a joint press release. A video demonstration on YouTube shows how the automated system works. The robots run along tracks to gather items based on digital orders.

Robot developers say they are close to a breakthrough--getting a machine to pick up a toy and put it in a box. It is a simple task for a child, but for retailers it has been a big hurdle to automating one of the most labor-intensive aspects of e-commerce: grabbing items off shelves and packing them for shipping. HBC -1.08% and Chinese online-retail giant JD.com Inc., JD 0.37% have recently begun testing robotic "pickers" in their distribution centers. Some robotics companies say their machines can move gadgets, toys and consumer products 50% faster than human workers. Retailers and logistics companies are counting on the new advances to help them keep pace with explosive growth in online sales and pressure to ship faster.

Robot developers say they are close to a breakthrough--getting a machine to pick up a toy and put it in a box. It is a simple task for a child, but for retailers it has been a big hurdle to automating one of the most labor-intensive aspects of e-commerce: grabbing items off shelves and packing them for shipping. HBC -1.08% and Chinese online-retail giant JD.com Inc., JD 0.37% have recently begun testing robotic "pickers" in their distribution centers. Some robotics companies say their machines can move gadgets, toys and consumer products 50% faster than human workers. Retailers and logistics companies are counting on the new advances to help them keep pace with explosive growth in online sales and pressure to ship faster.