👽 FiToSci @ Collision

Hey there, I'm Emil Protalinski and this is FiToSci, a newsletter that tracks how humanity is taking the fiction out of science fiction.

Between some travel, a bachelor party, and attending Collision 2022 over the past two weeks, I haven't had time for my usual news recap. Thankfully, two of the panels I moderated at Collision fall neatly into the sci-fi category, so I'm including them in today's newsletter for your perusal.

The human future of automation

• Robust AI co-founder and CEO Anthony Jules

• Artificial co-founder and CPO Nikhita Singh

• Playground Global founder Peter Barrett

🤖 In this panel, I asked Anthony, Nikhita, and Peter about the challenges of robots and humans working together in close proximity, where we might see robots in the workforce sooner rather than later, the great resignation, the most exciting and investable areas of automation, and more.

How close are we to making eVTOLs real?

🚗 In this fireside chat, I asked Lilium co-founder Patrick Nathen what is unique about his company's approach, where flying cars might be deployed first, autonomy, environmental impacts, city design, regulatory issues, his eVTOL roadmap, where he wants the industry to be in 10 years, and more.

Quote of the week

👓 "I am incredibly excited about AR as you may know, and the critical thing in any technology, including AR, is putting humanity at the center of it. That is what we focus on every day. I could not be more excited about the opportunities in the space. Sort of stay tuned and you will see what we have to offer." — Apple CEO Tim Cook on the company's worst-kept secret.

Deals

🚗 Overair raised $145 million.

👓🧬 Proximie raised $80 million.

🚗 Wingcopter raised $42 million.

🚗🤖 Indoor Robotics raised $15 million.

🤖 BotsAndUs raised $13 million.

🤖 Collaborative Robotics raised $10 million.

Interviews

👓 Unity CEO John Riccitiello predicts the metaverse's killer app.

👓 Roblox CTO Daniel Sturman outlines his vision for the metaverse.

🤖🧬 Dr. Guido de Croon explains why robots should think more like bugs.

Thank you for reading FiToSci! As a treat for reading right to the very end, check out this wheel that rolls uphill.

Got feedback or a comment? You can reply to this email anytime or tag FiToSci on Twitter. If you know a friend or colleague who might enjoy this newsletter, point them to FiToSci.com.

See you next week!