Robots – Impact Lab

Robots That Act Like Children: The Next Frontier of Emotional Support

September 24, 2025

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Hospitals are places of healing, but they are also places of fear, loneliness, and overwhelming stress—especially for children. To address this hidden dimension of patient care, a new kind of companion has emerged: Robin, a therapeutic robot programmed to act like a 7-year-old girl.

Developed by Expper Technologies, Robin is not just a machine rolling down hallways—it is a social presence, designed to talk, laugh, and play in ways that disarm anxiety. CEO Karen Khachikyan describes Robin as a tool to supplement the efforts of overworked medical staff, helping create emotional connections at moments when patients need them most. This is more than innovation. It is the beginning of a revolution in how society thinks about care.

Biotech, Breakthrough Thinking, Robotics, Robots

The End of Needles? Bubble-Powered Robots May Change Medicine Forever

September 15, 2025

Imagine a future where the dreaded needle prick at the doctor’s office becomes obsolete. No more cold steel, no more anxiety, no more crying children clutching their arms. Instead, drugs could be delivered by microscopic robots that ride shockwaves from collapsing bubbles—harnessing one of nature’s most violent yet controllable forces to perform delicate medical miracles.

A joint team of American and Chinese researchers has taken the first steps toward this future by turning bubble collapse—known as cavitation—into a propulsion system for microrobots. Cavitation is usually a destructive process, the same one that chews up ship propellers and turbine blades as vapor bubbles form and implode in liquid. But when carefully controlled, the violent energy from a bursting bubble can become an engine.

Military, military drones, Robotics, Robots

How Military Kill-Bots May Infect Your Domestic House-Bots

September 8, 2025

By Futurist Thomas Frey

The death algorithm is already written.

Right now, in classified labs across the globe, military engineers are perfecting code designed to identify humans and eliminate them with mechanical precision. These aren’t theoretical weapons systems—they’re operational killing machines that can hunt, target, and execute without a single human pulling a trigger. The age of autonomous warfare has arrived, and with it, a threat that extends far beyond any battlefield.

Your house-bots are about to become collateral damage.

Health, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Robotics, Robots

The Rise of the Touchless Massage: When AI Becomes Your Masseuse

September 5, 2025

There was a time when massages were the most human of services—hands on skin, intuition guiding pressure, and trust built between therapist and client. Now, even that deeply personal experience is being rewritten by artificial intelligence. At the W Scottsdale’s AWAY Spa, a New York startup called Aescape has introduced Arizona’s first AI-powered robotic massage table, and with it, a glimpse into the future of wellness.

The system doesn’t look like the stereotypical humanoid robot. Instead, overhead sensors scan your body, gathering over a million data points to map posture, tension, and muscle contours. Two robotic arms then adjust in real time to deliver a personalized massage. Pressure, music, and focus areas can be modified on the fly using a tablet positioned beneath the face cradle. In other words, the robot isn’t just repeating pre-programmed motions—it’s learning.

Biotech, Birth, Latest News, New Viewpoints, People Making a Difference, Robotics, Robots

The Birth of Synthetic Motherhood: China’s Race to Build the First Pregnancy Robot

September 4, 2025

For centuries, the act of carrying and delivering life has been bound to the biology of women. Now, that fundamental truth is being challenged by a vision straight out of science fiction: a humanoid robot with an artificial womb, designed to carry a child from conception to delivery.

Health, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Medicine, Robotics, Robots

AI-Assisted Robotic Surgery: Redefining the Operating Room

September 3, 2025

The operating room has long been the stage for human skill, steady hands, and judgment honed over decades. But a new player is stepping into this sacred space—artificial intelligence fused with robotics—and it’s proving to be faster, safer, and more precise than anything we’ve seen before. A sweeping review of 25 studies conducted between 2024 and 2025 has found that AI-assisted robotic surgery can cut complications by up to 30%, shorten recovery times, and even reduce hospital costs. In short, the surgical revolution is here, and the scalpel may soon share equal billing with the algorithm.

Engineering, Robotics, Robots

The Rise of Wearable Robot Jackets: Reimagining Human Movement

August 30, 2025

For centuries, humans have turned to tools, braces, and therapy to restore movement after injury or disease. But what if the next stage of mobility isn’t about therapy or external devices, but about slipping into a soft robotic jacket that learns your movements, adapts to your needs, and becomes a seamless extension of your body? That future is no longer science fiction. It is being stitched, wired, and programmed in research labs right now.

People Making a Difference, Robotics, Robots

Robots in the Underworld: Lunar Cave Scouts Could Decide Where Humans Live Next

August 17, 2025

What if the first permanent human homes on Mars or the moon aren’t on the surface at all, but hidden deep beneath the ground in ancient lava tubes?

That’s exactly the frontier a team of scientists is preparing for—by sending autonomous robots into volcanic caves here on Earth. The testing ground: Lanzarote, a volcanic island in Spain’s Canary Islands. Its subterranean passages bear an uncanny resemblance to the underground caverns already confirmed on the moon and suspected on Mars.

Great New Product, People Making a Difference, Robotics, Robots

Meet GR-3: The Humanoid Robot That Doesn’t Just Work—It Feels

August 8, 2025

If you thought robots were destined to be cold, mechanical helpers, Fourier just proved you wrong. Their newly unveiled GR-3 isn’t another soulless metal servant—it’s a full-size humanoid “Care-bot” designed to live, move, and connect in ways that blur the line between circuitry and empathy.

Standing 165 cm tall with 55 degrees of freedom, GR-3 moves with an ease that feels unsettlingly human. It can squat, bend, and even stroll with a “bouncy walk” or “fatigue mode” depending on the moment. But what really sets it apart is the way it looks at you—literally. Its Full-Perception Multimodal Interaction System integrates sight, sound, and touch into a real-time emotional engine.

Big Problems, Military, military drones, Robotics, Robots

Missile-Dodging Drones: China’s Latest War Machines Are Built to Survive—and Kill

August 4, 2025

Nine out of ten combat drones don’t make it home. In today’s battlefields, most are swatted from the sky by sophisticated defense systems before they even reach their targets. But a team of Chinese aerospace engineers believes they’ve just rewritten the rules of drone warfare—by making the machines harder to hit than ever before.

Forget stealth. These drones fight back with speed, unpredictability, and brute acceleration.

Intellectual Property, People Making a Difference, Robotics, Robots

China’s Humanoid Power Move: Meet the Muscle-Bound, Kung Fu-Dancing Robot That Might Replace Your Coworker

August 4, 2025

China just unveiled a humanoid robot that dances, lifts weights, throws punches, sorts boxes, and—if you kick it from behind—recovers like a champ. Meet Oli, LimX Dynamics’ new full-sized, multitasking marvel that could soon be the face (and biceps) of a post-human workforce.

Oli isn’t some stiff, industrial relic bolted to a factory floor. This robot pumps iron at the gym, practices kung fu with a trainer, sorts warehouse packages like a champ, and then grooves to music with enough flair to upstage your uncle at a wedding. It’s not science fiction. It’s a flex—both literal and technological.

3D Printer, Robotics, Robots

The Printer Has Entered the Construction Site — And Nothing Will Ever Be the Same

August 4, 2025

Forget bricks. Forget mortar. Forget the months-long grind of scaffolding, dust storms, and crews working dawn to dusk just to complete a single floor.

In a quiet corner of Metzingen, Germany, a new era of construction just roared to life—and it did so one printed layer at a time.

ZÜBLIN and INSTATIQ didn’t just build apartments. They printed them. Using the Instatiq P1—an on-site 3D concrete printer that moves like a robotic boom on steroids—they completed the entire top floor of a four-story residential building without traditional crews, scaffolding, or even specialized materials. It’s the first time in Germany (and one of the first times anywhere) that a structural load-bearing floor of this scale has been fabricated directly on-site using nothing but concrete and code.