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Final day. We did a walkthrough 360 video from the Innovation Lab and the Startup Zone on the lower floor. The quality is not super, but you can drag and get the view you want here: The final day is generally quite busy up to mid day and then quietens down from there.  Ingenico's Finger Robot We typically pick up a little robot that is standing in a corner doing something that no-one really picks up. Ingenico's finger robot is one of these - an articulated arm robot that is used to demonstrate how easy it is to use Ingenico's new...

The Monday is often considered the business day, when the larger budget buyers come out to play. Most exhibitors appeared sanguine about the level of visitor traffic versus quality as usual. It is not inconceivable that NRF 2022 has taken a hit in visit traffic, many thanks to the pandemic. One of the longest queues at NRF during all our visits have been to Starbucks. Many coffee connoisseurs criticize Starbucks for the apparent lack of coffee in the drinks they serve. However, as the queue is evidence of - these beverages are very popular in the US... but... Starbucks also sell gift...

Day 1 at NRF Big Show kicked off with a keynote featuring Target's CEO Brian Cornell and Matthew Shay, President & CEO National Retail Federation. After the usual smalltalk about how business was over the holiday period, the two men started talking about supply chain problems and how they could be overcome alongside any other headwinds the retail sector is bound to experience in the next few months and years.  The main focus for Brian Cornell was upstream improvements in visibility and improvement of ports in the US. It was a bit disappointing not to hear about onshoring of manufacturing or alternative sourcing strategies...

Recent news about the high prevalence of Covid in New York appears to have influenced a few companies to downsize their presence at NRF. However, the show has not started yet and we will see with our own eyes from tomorrow 10am. Look out for our coverage from the show. The typical last minute frenzy of setting up meetings with exhibitors have been a very civil affair in 2022 with nearly all companies also offering a hybrid approach with post-show Zoom (replace with your choice of video meeting software) meetings.  Interestingly, the 2022 version has attracted many warehouse automation vendors, from AutoStore to Geek+ and...

Amazon (via AWS) has begun offering a number of SaaS packages for robotics  vendors and recently announced a startup collaboration with MassRobotics to encourage uptake of these solutions: "The AWS Robotics Accelerator" (link) Is this simply a software play from AWS to get vendors hooked on their cloud services or, is this a larger robotics play from Amazon and should robot vendors worry that Amazon might roll out their own in-house robots (Kiva Systems)? AWS currently offers a range of solutions, including RoboMaker (a simulation tool) and IOT TwinMaker (a digital twin solution): AWS RoboMaker - Robot Simulation Tool (AWS product page, blog post) AWS IOT...