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AI Technology

Dyson Pledges New Investment Into AI, Robotics and Batteries (ft.com) 35

Dyson will invest an additional 2.75bn pound ($3.67 billion) on developing technologies and products over the next five years [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], as the appliances brand pushes deeper into areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics and energy storage. From a report: The company founded by billionaire James Dyson and famous for its vacuum cleaners said it intended to double its portfolio of products by 2025 and enter new fields, taking it "beyond the home" for the first time. Although it did not provide any breakdown of the investments, they will be focused in Singapore, where the group controversially decided to move its headquarters last year, as well as the UK and the Philippines. The announcement comes more than a year after Dyson abandoned its ambitious plans to manufacture an electric vehicle from scratch in the Asian city-state. Sir James had hoped that the EV project would redefine his business but, after spending hundreds of millions of pounds, concluded that it was too expensive to compete against established carmakers.
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Dyson Pledges New Investment Into AI, Robotics and Batteries

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  • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @09:14AM (#60770254) Homepage Journal

    This is probably due to them finally getting some decent competition in the vacuum cleaner market. Xiaomi now make as good or better vacuum cleaners for half or less the price of a Dyson.

    • Never heard of Xiambi. Ive owed two dyson vacuums, both still going strong. I also have that little handheld one but i dont count that since it only runs for about 5 min before needing a recharge. It was the suction power more than anything that sold me. Of course, we realized a little later that berber carpet and a dyson dont play well together.

      So my question about the competition is will they last as long? We got our first dyson, a purple (pet) upright in 2004 and its still going like a champ. We got the

      • Re: Competiton (Score:5, Informative)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @09:37AM (#60770292) Homepage Journal

        Xiaomi are a major, well established brand with a history of producing great products. Products that actually work and are reliable.

        Their vacuum cleaners are as good as Dyson, better in some cases. By "as good" I mean

        - Clean as well on carpets and hard floors
        - Very low emissions (dust being exhausted into the air)
        - Long battery life
        - High build quality
        - Easy to use, light weight and easy to empty

        For less than half the price of a similar Dyson you get more accessories. Spare batteries are available and reasonably priced.

        It's great that there is finally some competition. Most of the other brands like Hoover, VAX, AEG, Siemens, Miele and the like all score lower in these areas.

        • Indeed, the established brands make awful, awful bagless vacuums. And I've tried a fair few. The most common issue is how well the cyclone works. If it works poorly, more dust ends up in the filter which will require cleaning more often. With some brands (Siemens, Philips) you'll spend more time cleaning that filter than cleaning your floors. Dyson scores very well on that point; how does the Xiaomi vacuum stack up in that regard?

          I have the Dyson cordless vacuum (v10) and it's great (the housekeeper
          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            The Xiaomi filters seem to be as good as the Dyson ones in terms of not getting clogged. They are lifetime filters, you wash them occasionally the same as Dyson.

            Volume seems to be about the same as Dyson.

      • Never heard

        Xiaomi is the most common electric scooter brand I see on the street, and there are cheaper knockoffs like Swagtron that appear to be made in a different factory from the same CAD drawings.

    • by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @09:57AM (#60770324)

      Dyson used his shitty-product-gotten-gains to back the Brexit Disaster, before leaving Britain for Singapore.

      Fark him.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Indeed, punishing brexiteers is a worthy cause and a good reason to avoid his products.

      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        The production facilities were moved out of the UK over ten years before Brexit or before Dyson moved his business headquarters to Singapore.

        But a lot of Brexiteers have been quietly hedging their bets by applying for residency in the EU or moving assets there. Cyprus has been doing a brisk business selling Cypriot dual citizenship to Brexit backers at two million euros a pop.

      • Dyson used his shitty-product

        I know you're a liar because I've already seen the oscilloscope output from their controllers. You could also just ask for a demo in the store and it will be obvious.

    • I think Dyson is trying to compete against Elon Musk in being Mr. Innovative CEO.

      I think the Vacuum business isn't his big focus. Batteries/Robotics/AI... Unless he is trying to make a better Rumba, most of this will not help with making a better Vacuum Cleaner. (Well a battery powered one might be nice)

      But I really think he just wants to be known as one of those innovative engineer CEO's, regardless of how much engineering and innovation they may have personally done.

      For the ultra Rich, When their money

      • by rossdee ( 243626 )

        "I think Dyson is trying to compete against Elon Musk in being Mr. Innovative CEO"

        When is he going to start building a Sphere around the sun

      • I'm working in a robotics startup right now, and we don't even have our robots on the market yet and we're already spinning off battery management systems since that gets designed first. Battery management is mostly DC-DC switching, and so are their motor controllers, which are best-of-class. So it is an obvious direction for them to go, and their engineering will easily be high quality.

        AI is a required keyword if it is a significant part of their plans, or not. But generally, the high level parts of roboti

  • by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @09:22AM (#60770268)
    Dyson is known for its noisy vacuum cleaners and hand dryers, that blow bacteria and viruses into the air we have to breathe. Maybe they should do everyone a favour and spend a tiny bit of effort on reducing the noise output of their pandemic spreader machines.
    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      Seems like a well reasoned comment. Surely if these machines ARE responsible for spreading disease then Dyson should reduce their noise.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      If you did a proper job washing your hands, there's be no pathogens on them to blow. It's just another case of a technological solution defeated by human behavior.

    • They not even that great of Vacuums either. I used to have one, but recently purchased a SEBO, and it is night and day difference.

  • by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @09:54AM (#60770318)

    Pounds is the plural of pound.

  • by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @10:32AM (#60770402)

    The last time someone named Dyson worked on A.I. [wikipedia.org], it didn't end well.

  • In Asia, where he fled to?

  • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @03:28PM (#60771086)

    I'm still waiting on the magic electric car that would make Tesla look like a seller of outdated toys. Where was that promised development Mr Dyson?

    A.I., Robotics, Batteries, These are the 2020 version of Bitcoin. It sounds like Mr Dyson is trying to bilk some more investors with promises of a revolutionary buzzword.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yep, that's why Apple's bottom of the barrel low end desktop is slaughtering most existing Wintel space heaters in performance. Some people just want a real desktop UNIX box with decent commercial app availability that doesn't require a month of effort tweaking shit to get a nice productive desktop environment and workflow.

  • To end up with a lot of egg in their face, as with the electric car?

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