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Remembering Joanne Pransky

A version of this post original appeared in TechCrunch’s weekly robotics newsletter, Actuator . It has been updated to include details about a new scholarship fund being raised in her honor.  I didn’t know Joanne Pransky personally, so when news of her death broke late last month, I reached out to my LinkedIn followers, asking if any of them did. “Yes,” answered one, “didn’t everyone?” Over decades of work, Pransky has left a lasting impact on the industry, bringing a uniquely human element to conversations about robotics and automation. “Joanne was the epitome of ‘Think Different,’” iRobot co-founder and Tertill CEO Helen Greiner told me over email. “She was a pioneer in calling attention to what robots would mean for society and what human society would mean for the robots.” Pransky proudly adopted the title of “the world’s first real Robotic Psychiatrist,” devoting herself to act as a conduit between humans and robots. “My ultimate goal is to help people understand their emotiona
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Winging it

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Once again, your intrepid robotics reporter finds himself in the warm embrace of the Bay. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the warmest I was ever embraced was early summer in Santa Clara. I’m writing this from a juice place in Palo Alto (living the dream), having finished a pair of back-to-back meetings nearby. This week’s big Apple event brought me out here. As strange as it is to say, I’ve thus far missed the eye-burning smoke of Nova Scotia wildfires by traveling west to California. Very strange to view the apocalyptic New York skyline from afar. Though I suppose predictability is an element of climate change we’re going to be grappling with for . . . I don’t know, ever, probably. I’ve covered the Apple experience a bunch this week. If you have time to read only one thing I wrote on the Vision Pro headset , I’d recommend this . It’s mostly about positioning and market fit. There’s not a ton about the system that’s applicable to the manner of stuff you normally encounter in this newslet
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Upward and onward

The future is very much yet to be written about vertical farming. In many ways, the technology presents hope in the midst of rising food safety concerns, aging populations and potential environmental collapse. It’s also an intensely hard row to hoe, as it were. Early companies in the space are going to be the ones focused on driving down unit economics (hopefully) to a point where the technology makes sense from a price perspective. But sometimes being early to a party means you’re among the first to leave. Last January, we covered what looked to be an important next step for Upward Farms, as the company announced plans to open a 250,000-square-foot farm in Northeastern, Pennsylvania early this year. The Brooklyn-based firm recently announced , however, that it has closed up shop. “We found that vertical farming is almost infinitely complex — as we tackled challenges, new ones emerged,” founders Jason Green, Ben Silverman and Matt La Rosa said in an open letter. “Our team faced thes
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