Movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner and The Terminator brought rogue robots and computer systems to our cinema screens. But these days, such classic science fiction spectacles don't seem so far removed from reality.
Today's crop breeders are trying to boost yields while also preparing crops to withstand severe weather and changing climates. To succeed, they must locate genes for high-yielding, hardy traits in crop plants' DNA. A robot developed by the University of Illinois to find these proverbial needles in the haystack was recognized by the best systems paper award at Robotics: Science and Systems, the preeminent robotics conference held last week in Pittsburgh.
It has played football with former US president Barack Obama and danced for German leader Angela Merkel, but Honda's ASIMO robot may have reached the end of the line.
The conversation around artificial intelligence and automation seems dominated by either doomsayers who fear robots will supplant all humans in the workforce, or optimists who think there's nothing new under the sun. But MIT Sloan professor Erik Brynjolfsson and his colleagues say that debate needs to take a different tone.
Robots can help do a lot of things—assemble cars, search for explosives, cook a meal or aid in surgery. But one thing they can't do is tell you how they're doing—yet.
Robots will be a necessity with the ageing population needing assistance to improve their mobility. On the long road to help seniors maintain their life quality, EU researchers have developed a unique prototype robot.
SmokeBot is a robot developed to assist fire services and rescue units in deployments under critical conditions. It collects data about accident and disasters situations with extremely limited visibility, effectively improving the safety of rescue operations.
"The price of solar-generated electricity continues to plummet, and the technology is taking over as the least expensive form of energy in more and more parts of the world," says solar cell researcher John Atle Bones at SINTEF.
It speaks two languages, gives math lessons, tells jokes and interacts with children through the tablet screen in its chest—China's latest robot is the babysitter every parent needs.
From slithering and walking to flying or swimming, animals are able to move and interact with their environment with relative ease. However, building a robot with the same capabilities is much more difficult.
With the push of a button, months of hard work were about to be put to the test. Sixteen teams of engineers convened in a cavernous exhibit hall in Nagoya, Japan, for the 2017 Amazon Robotics Challenge. The robotic systems they built were tasked with removing items from bins and placing them into boxes. For graduate student Maria Bauza, who served as task-planning lead for the MIT-Princeton Team, the moment was particularly nerve-wracking.
An international team of researchers, led by Professor Hongsoo Choi, Director of DGIST-ETH Microrobot Research Center, has developed capsule-type microrobots that can encapsulate cells and drugs and deliver them to targeted parts of the human body. Unlike conventional methods that install cells or drugs outside of micro robots, the lids of these microrobots can be open and closed.
It's the hands-free experience you never knew you needed—a Japanese company has developed a drone-powered parasol it says can hover over users, protecting them from the sun.
World, meet Harmony. Completely artificial and programmed by computer chips, the somewhat lifelike sex robot is marketed by sex doll maker Realbotix for $15,000. According to The Guardian, she's equipped for intimate relations but is also "the perfect companion," Realbotix says—able to quote Shakespeare and remember your birthday.
It's never been clear whether robotics company Boston Dynamics is making killing machines, household helpers, or something else entirely.