Have you ever looked out at a lake, river or harbor and been taken aback by the amount of floating trash and debris? A start-up company called Clear Robotics is tackling this environmental issue in an innovative way: with autonomous robot boats.

Clear Robotics was founded by two university graduates who wanted to automate the labor-intensive task of cleaning up floating waste from waterways. Their solution is the Clearbot, a robotic vessel that cruises through harbors, lakes and canals using its open bow to collect floating debris into onboard storage bins.

GET SECURITY ALERTS, EXPERT TIPS – SIGN UP FOR KURT’S NEWSLETTER – THE CYBERGUY REPORT HERE

Clearbot (Clear Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Clear Robotics is expanding its fleet

Clear Robotics is now expanding its fleet with a new Class 3 autonomous marine vessel. This larger robot boat boasts five times the increased onboard storage capacity of 1.5 tons for collected trash and debris. It can also tow an additional barge, allowing for extended cleanup operations without needing to return to port as frequently.

Beyond just collecting floating waste, the new Class 3 vessel has been engineered to tackle another aquatic nuisance: invasive weeds. Its enhanced capabilities make it an even more powerful tool in the fight to keep local waters clean and healthy. In addition, it can be used in surveillance as it relates to water quality and even oil and foam collection.

Clearbot (Clear Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

THIS AI ROBOT GARBAGE PICKER CAN SORT OVER 500 TYPES OF TRASH IN SECONDS

The new vessel’s increased capacity

The new vessel has been designed to gather up to 441 pounds of floating garbage per hour and has an onboard storage capacity of 1,100 pounds. Because it can be equipped with a towing barge, it can extend its per-trip payload, as mentioned above, to 1.5 tons.

Its electric drive can manage an average speed of 3.5 mph, while the 3-kWh battery pack is good for up to eight hours of per-charge operation. Clear Robotics has installed solar panels up top that can add extra hours in ideal conditions. The company also reports that it has rolled out a self-docking mechanism across its entire fleet so that its vessels can autonomously return to docking stations with a solar charging unit for a top-up.

Clearbot (Clear Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

THE TROUBLING TRUTH ABOUT OUR COUNTRY’S RECYCLING PROGRAMS

Cutting-edge tech for cleaning and plant removal

The 13.25-by-7.5-by-5.5-foot Class 3 Clearbot features a 1080p camera and lidar and can be optioned with anti-collision smarts for fully autonomous operation. It features a conveyor in front to gather floating debris but is also equipped with a specialized cutter to extract invasive plants and weeds like hyacinths and duckweed.

If on trash duty, the vessel is reported to be capable of covering up to 107,600 square feet per day, though that’s reduced when snipping and removing weeds.

Clearbot (Clear Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

IS THIS TECHNOLOGY THE ANSWER TO CLEANING UP OUR OCEAN’S PLASTIC PROBLEM?

Key autonomous features of the Class 3 Clearbot

Key features of Clear Robotics’ new Class 3 autonomous marine vessel Clearbot include:

Autonomous waypoint mission path: With Clearbot, you can provide a set of GPS waypoints (i.e., a set of latitude/longitude pairs) and have the robot autonomously navigate from its current location to each of the defined waypoints to collect trash.

Fail-safe return to home: Clearbot comes back to the Home Point if it happens to lose signal when connected to a remote controller or through Wi-Fi. With the RTH function, you can ensure safe marine operations even in larger water bodies.

Anti-collision software: Anti-collision detection helps you stop your Clearbot from moving and reverse its movement slightly when it detects something within a 45-foot radius around the boat when cleaning up trash and oil from marine environments.

AI-powered dashboard: Dashboards help Clearbot’s users monitor data-revealed emerging trends, track their operations and make informed decisions based on rigorous analysis.

HOW TO REMOVE YOUR PRIVATE DATA FROM THE INTERNET

Clearbot (Clear Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Clearbot’s new trash-cleaning partnership

Clearbot entered a partnership with Kingspan Group, which is a global leader in high-performance insulation and building envelope solutions, to begin sustainable cleaning of the Nonbah River in Nongstoin City in India. This demonstrates the real-world application and adoption of their autonomous trash collection technology.

Clearbot (Clear Robotics) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Kurt’s key takeaways

The rise of autonomous robotic solutions like Clearbot represents a major step forward in tackling the enormous problem of marine pollution and waterway contamination. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies like AI, machine vision and self-driving capabilities, these systems can operate continuously with minimal human intervention to clear vast areas of floating debris, oil slicks and invasive vegetation. As the technology matures and costs come down, we could potentially see fleets of these trash goblins patrolling rivers, harbors and coastlines around the world, making a significant dent in the millions of tons of waste that ends up in our waterways each year.

Have you witnessed the impact of plastic pollution and floating debris in your local waterways? What innovative solutions would you like to see implemented to tackle this environmental issue? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

For more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/Newsletter.

Ask Kurt a question or let us know what stories you’d like us to cover.

Follow Kurt on his social channels

Answers to the most asked CyberGuy questions:

Copyright 2024 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.

For all its impressive technical chops, Apple’s all-singing, all-dancing Vision Pro hasn’t set the world on fire. But it’s early yet, and the company continues to throw some weight behind the headset, and reportedly has plans to add AI features to visionOS and is readying an updated approach to in-store demos.

The company is adding a new “Go Deeper” option to its in-store demos, Gurman writes. That reportedly includes testing office features and watching videos, as well as defaulting to the Dual Loop band that sends straps over the top and around the back of wearers’ heads instead of the single-strap Solo Loop band, which some find uncomfortable.

Apple will also reportedly let people view their own videos and photos, including panoramas, in the headset. Adding the sentimental touch to the demos could work out, especially once visionOS 2 comes out this fall, with its “spatialize” option to turn 2D photos into 3D ones — a feature that’s more impressive than it has the right to be (though still a little quirky with hair and glasses, like Apple’s Portrait Mode feature).

But I can imagine it going the other way if people end up looking at the wrong images. You know how looking at your iPhone photos on your computer monitor suddenly exposes all their flaws? Try looking at them when they’re the size of a wall.

But it really feels like all of this is just triage until the company releases a cheaper headset, which its expected to do at the end of next year. It’s not clear what that will look like, though, given conflicting rumors at the moment — like that it’s going with lower-res displays for a follow-up or that it actually aims to keep the high-res displays but has stopped working on the Vision Pro 2 (or not).

The common thread running through all of those stories, though, is that Apple is finding it very hard to make the headset it wants to make without it costing a hojillion dollars. It’s too early to declare the Vision Pro a dead end, but I can’t shake the feeling that without that cheaper headset, Apple doesn’t have a path forward unless it’s okay with letting the Vision Pro serve a niche market while it chases that lightweight AR glasses dream.

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that not everyone agrees on the best way to handle their computer’s trash directory. Some folks like to let it go until their computer yells at them about storage, while others empty it every single day. I’m somewhere in the middle, but I do try not to let it go too far. And I think I found the best tool for that job a couple of days ago: Bananabin.

When the data kept in your Trash folder passes a certain threshold, Bananabin surrounds with buzzing, animated flies that you can shoo away with your mouse. That’s it. That’s the app.

You can configure the fly threshold from the app’s icon in the menu bar; the three options are Janitor Mode (10MB), The Recycler (1GB), and Garbage Hoarder (10GB). The app free right now, while it’s in beta. Leon Schrijvers, one of Bananabin’s developers, said in an email to The Verge that they’re still working out some bugs (heh). The flies won’t show up if you keep for an iCloud Trash bin, nor will it if you keep the folder an external drive. Also, it only works for macOS Sonoma at the moment, though they’re looking into adding support for macOS Ventura later.

Something to note: Bananabin requires accessibility and full disk access permissions to work. The app’s site says this lets it find the Trash directory and check to for when it’s full. That seems plausible, but it’s something to know, in case it’s a dealbreaker for you.

If that’s fine by you, you can try the app by heading to Bananabin’s website (here’s the link one more time). You have to provide an email address to get a download link.