GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (GOSY)

[XenaLives]

My DD shows a serious contraction in VC funding in Israel at about the same time the Daya contract was signed. That's the simplest explanation.

You also have to remember that Silicon Valley startups have blown $50 million on R&D and gone bust with no IP at all. Microsoft and Adept robotics couldn't find anyone who could do navigation with the Kinects and Microsoft gave up on robotics soon afterward.

The industry is nascent, it will happen when it happens.

I find this quite humorous:

2014 Kinect Autonomous Mobile Robot Navigation Contest

Microsoft and Adept MobileRobots are proud to announce the 2014 "Kinect Autonomous Navigation Contest", to be held at the 2014 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in Chicago, Illinois, USA on September 18, 2014.

This contest will show off the state of the art of autonomous navigation in realistic and dynamic unstructured environments. Autonomous navigation in static and controlled environments is a mostly solved problem, however, in this contest, the environment will be populated with realistic items that are known to challenge typical navigation sensors and systems, such as narrow chair and table legs and uneven surfaces. It will also feature moving people and furniture. There may be other surprises as well. Successful navigation will require state of the art mapping and autonomous navigation using a real robot and sensors.

Winners will be chosen based on time and accuracy of navigation to specific points within the contest environment, and prizes awarded to winning contestants (if eligible).

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/events/robotnavigationcontest/info.aspx

Compare with this several years before:

$8 million over 17 years with tech that Microsoft and Adept couldn't duplicate seems like a much better bet.