ROBOT strippers will make their debut pole-dancing alongside their human counterparts in a French nightclub.
Laurent Roue, owner of the Strip Club Café in Nantes, said punters might find the gyrating plastic-and-metal robots “very sexy”.
A cave is no place for humans, so DARPA is sending in the robots
DARPA’s Subterranean Challenge aims to make cave exploration a more robotic affair.
Outside its cavernous passageways, the mine’s entrance is emblazoned in red lettering that reads “Safety Research Coal Mine.” This site is just one of two mine systems at the Bruceton Research Center in Pittsburgh. They were once part of a full mine system but were split apart for research purposes after the U.S. Bureau of Mines leased 38 acres of land from the Pittsburgh Coal Company in 1910.
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Thousands of autonomous delivery robots are about to descend on US college campuses
Starship Technologies announces an expansion of its robot delivery service after raising $40 million
The quintessential college experience of getting pizza delivered to your dorm room is about to get a high-tech upgrade. On Tuesday, Starship Technologies announced its plan to deploy thousands of its autonomous six-wheeled delivery robots on college campuses around the country over the next two years, after raising $40 million in Series A funding.
It’s a big step for the San Francisco (née Estonia)-based startup and its robots, which have been tested in over 100 cities in 20 different countries, traveled 350,000 miles, crossed 4 million streets, and just marked the milestone of completing its 100,000th delivery. College campuses, with their abundance of walking paths, well-defined boundaries, and smartphone-using, delivery-minded student bodies, are an obvious place for Starship to stake out the next phase of its business.
Amazon delivery robots are officially on the streets of California
Amazon has robots on the streets. It’s a good bet urban delivery will never be the same.
Amazon has officially rolled out its last-mile delivery robots in a Southern California testbed. Called Scout, the delivery robot is designed to autonomously ferry parcels from urban distribution points to Amazon Prime customers, removing the need for vans and cars in last-mile delivery.
Amazon has previously tested its delivery robots in Washington State, but this marks the first California deployment. The robots, deployed in the Irvine area, will drive during daytime hours. Though designed to operate autonomously, the test robots will be accompanied by humans to ensure nothing goes wrong. So-called “Scout Ambassadors” will also be gauging public reaction to the robots, which is a big X-factor in plans to deploy autonomous mobile robots on city streets.
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Robot racism? Yes, says a study showing humans’ biases extend to robots
“Robots And Racism,” a study conducted by the Human Interface Technology Laboratory in New Zealand and published by the country’s University of Canterbury, suggests people perceive physically human-like robots to have a race and therefore apply racial stereotypes to white and black robots.
Have you ever noticed the popularity of white robots?
You see them in films like Will Smith’s “I, Robot” and Eve from “Wall-E.” Real-life examples include Honda’s Asimo, UBTECH’s Walker, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, and even NASA’s Valkyrie robot. All made of shiny white material. And some real-life humanoid robots are modeled after white celebrities, such as Audrey Hepburn and Scarlett Johansson.
The reason for these shades of technological white may be racism, according to new research.
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Desperate for workers, aging Japan turns to robots for healthcare
A woman wearing a Cyberdyne lumbar robotic suit, which is designed to help her walk, gets an assist from caregiver Asami Konishi.
TSUKUBA, Japan — In America and other aging societies around the world, it has become common for the elderly to be cared for by their graying children or older workers. That’s largely because the younger labor force is shrinking, and few want to do such low-paying, back-aching work.
Japan sees an answer in robots.
At Minami Tsukuba nursing home near Tokyo, caregiver Asami Konishi wears a robotic device on her hips that cuts the stress on her back when she bends and lifts someone.
“It really helps when I have to pick up a heavier male patient,” said the 34-year-old.
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Meet your future package delivery team: A self-driving vehicle and a robot
Digit uses its hands made of rubber balls to lift boxes that weigh up to 40 pounds, and has the ability to sidestep objects in its path and walk up staircases.
In may, damion shelton, the CEO of Agility Robotics, watched nervously as his new robot, Digit, attempted a groundbreaking feat: delivering a package from a self-driving vehicle to a front porch. “The robot has only been assembled for a couple months,” he says. “Now, it needs to stand and walk on its own. Will it fall and damage itself or deliver the package?”
Digit, a five-foot-tall, 88-pound bipedal robot, stands upright on thin, long, ostrich-like legs. It has 3D-printed rubber balls instead of fingers, a laser-range (LiDAR) sensor, a 3D camera for its head, and a battery-pack that lets it run for three hours on a single charge. Capable of picking up packages that weigh up to 40 pounds, Digit is designed to work in sync with self-driving vehicles, unfolding itself from the trunks of cars to deliver items across short distances within neighborhoods.
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A hospital introduced a robot to help nurses. They didn’t expect it to be so popular
A hospital introduced a robot to help nurses. They didn’t expect it to be so popular
Moxi is a robot designed to make nurses’ lives easier. But the friendly bot is turning out to be a welcome presence for some patients, too.
Nurses are in high demand: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of jobs for nurses will grow 15% from 2016 to 2026, which is much faster than other jobs. The current shortage has left hospitals in a crunch—and a few hospitals in Texas recently turned to an unusual solution: a robot named Moxi.
Battle underway at the port of LA : Driverless cargo handlers vs. jobs
LA WATCHDOG–On Friday, June 28, the Los Angeles City Council will consider a motion by Councilman Joe Buscaino to assert jurisdiction over a decision by the Board of Harbor Commissioners to approve a minor construction permit that would allow Maersk, the world’s largest shipper of cargo containers, and its subsidiary, APM Terminals, to install electric charging stations, wi-fi antenna poles, and traffic barriers in its 484 acre facility.
This construction permit is just a small part of Maersk’s ambitious plan to introduce up to 130 driverless electric powered cargo handlers that will increase the efficiency of its container operations. This capital-intensive project will also reduce emissions consistent with Mayor Eric Garcetti’s New Green Deal.
Unfortunately, the politically powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union is opposed Maersk’s plan because it believes that it will result in the loss of an estimated 500 jobs. As a result, they have enlisted the help of Garcetti, Buscaino who represents San Pedro, County Supervisor Janice Hahn, a resident of San Pedro, and the Democratic Party to oppose this minor construction permit in an effort to stall or derail Maersk’s project.
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The second coming of the robot pet
MITA YUN DIDN’T get into robotics to save the world. The lunar rovers she built as a student at Carnegie Mellon, and the software she developed as an engineer for Google—that stuff was just practice. The things Yun really wanted to make were friends.
Yun had hungered for companionship since she was a little girl in China. She’d begged her parents for a pet, but no dice. These were the days of China’s one-child policy, so no sibling either. Instead, Yun’s parents filled her room with a menagerie of stuffed animals, which she liked to imagine springing to life, their little paws dancing on her bedspread, their little bodies stuffed with possibilities.
In 2017, Yun quit her job at Google to start building the friend she’d always wanted. She started a company, called Zoetic, and recruited a few other roboticists to take her imaginary sidekick and turn it into a commercial product. Two years later, she’s ready to introduce her creation: a small, interactive robot called Kiki, which goes on pre-sale later this month.
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Fake blood pumps life into this robotic fish
Autonomous robots may soon be an ever-present force in our lives, but they are going nowhere fast — or rather, a short distance quickly — without better batteries. You’ve surely seen modern robots scamper through woods or vacuum your floors, but they can only do it for short periods before their energy runs out. Many carry a large battery, which increases a robot’s weight, and in a vicious cycle, requires more power to move.
But a new development in robotic technology that borrows from biology may lead to longer lasting batteries.
The fish “blood” that runs through it serves as both the robot’s power source and controls its movement.
Researchers have engineered a robotic lionfish with synthetic arteries, similar to those found in a human’s circulatory system. The fish “blood” that runs through it serves as both the robot’s power source and controls its movement. The findings, published Wednesday in Nature, may propel the new wave of soft robots, in which inventors seek to improve lifelike automated machines for human connection.
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Huntington Park Police to deploy ‘RoboCop’ to monitor public areas
The Huntington Park Police Department is set to unveil “HP RoboCop,” the latest tool in the force’s arsenal that will keep an electronic eye on public areas, the city of Huntington Park announced in a news release.
The device is “an autonomous data machine that is meant to serve outdoors,” that will use 360-degree HD video footage to “act as an extra set of eyes and monitor areas such as parks, city buildings and corridors where police might not have the time to consistently patrol,” the release said.
The city released a video of HP RoboCop rolling down a sidewalk, making electronic sounds and at one point even saying, “Good day to you.”
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