LEADS
Robot Surgeries Linked to Injuries, Deaths
Newsmax Health-Mar 5, 2013
After Michelle Zarick complained of excessive vaginal bleeding, her doctor found growths in her uterus that needed to be removed. One option: robot surgery, …
Law firms seek victims of ‘bad robot surgery’
Mar 01, 2013, 11:51 AM | By Tim Hornyak
Did your robot doctor mess up your insides? This lawsuit in the making sounds like a joke, but it’s real.
Spy-camera robot penguins infiltrate bird colonies
Feb 12, 2013, 10:04 AM | By Amanda Kooser
A BBC documentary team unleashed 50 spycams into penguin colonies, including cameras that served as eyes for robotic penguins, to capture stunning close-up footage of the unusual birds.
Robot Shakespeare Company Releases “The Tragedy of Macbeth”
PR Newswire (press release)-Mar 5, 2013
PHILADELPHIA, March 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — The Robot Shakespeare Company produces animated Shakespeare plays with sci-fi robots playing all the …
Japan robot suit gets global safety certificate
AFP-Feb 27, 2013
TOKYO — A robot suit that can help the elderly or disabled get around was given its global safety certificate in Japan on Wednesday, paving the way for its …
TERROR, MILITARY, POLICING, SURVEILLANCE
DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones
Mar 02, 2013, 11:30 AM | By Declan McCullagh
Homeland Security’s specifications say drones must be able to detect whether a civilian is armed. Also specified: “signals interception” and “direction finding” for electronic surveillance.
Teeny Tiny Microcopter Deploys to Afghanistan With British Troops
POSTED BY: Evan Ackerman / Tue, February 05, 2013
It’s hard to tell how tiny this helicopter is from the above pic. But it’s damn tiny. It’s only four inches long (about 10 centimeters), and weighs just 16 grams, but will happily carry a pan-and-tilt camera that streams video back to a base station. It’s called the Black Hornet, and it’s . . . adorable.
Posted 28 Feb 2013
There’s growing privacy concern over flying robots, or “drones”. Organizations like the EFF and ACLU have been raising the alarm over increased government surveillance of US citizens. Legislators haven’t been quick to respond to concerns of government spying on citizens. But Texas legislators are apparently quite concerned that private citizens operating hobby drones might spot environmental violations by businesses. You may recall the story from 2012 in which a hobbyist operating a small UAV over public land in Dallas, TX accidentally photographed a Dallas meat-packing plant illegally dumping pig blood into the Trinity river, resulting in an EPA indictment. Representative Lance Gooden has introduced HB912 to solve this “problem”. But the badly worded bill could also outlaw most outdoor hobby and STEM robotics activities, stop university robotics research programs, endanger commercial robotics R&D, and end many common commercial uses of robots such as commercial aerial photography. What exactly does the bill outlaw?
DIY Drone-Proofing: Militants Use Carpet, Grass Mats, Mud to Hide From Robots
Spencer Ackerman, 02.21.13
What’s the simplest way to evade a $4.5 million armed, flying robot? Get some grass mats. Or smear your car with mud. After hundreds of strikes over four drone-intensive years, al-Qaida is starting to pass around notes on cheap countermeasures militants can take to evade detection by the robots’ sensors. The longer the militants can delay the CIA or the U.S. military from obtaining a positive identification, the thinking goes, the less likely a strike becomes. Step one: Disguise your car. The advice comes from a xeroxed printout found in Timbuktu by the Associated Press shortly after Islamist militants fighting the French in Mali vacated the area. Taken from jihadi forums online and adapted, one recommendation for simple drone-proofing was to drape a car carrying militants with carpets so the cameras on a drone, thousands of feet up in the sky, might be fooled.
Domestic-Drone Industry Prepares for Big Battle With Regulators
Spencer Ackerman, 02.13.13
For a day, a sandy-haired Virginian named Jeremy Novara was the hero of the nascent domestic drone industry. Novara went to the microphone at a ballroom in a Ritz-Carlton outside Washington, D.C. on Wednesday and did something many in his business want to do: tenaciously challenge the drone regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration to loosen restrictions on unmanned planes over the United States. Judging from the reaction he received, and from the stated intentions of the drone advocates who convened the forum, the domestic-drone industry expects to do a lot more of that in the coming months. There’s been a lot of hype around unmanned drones becoming a fixture over U.S. airspace, both for law enforcement use and for operations by businesses as varied as farmers and filmmakers. All have big implications for traditional conceptions of privacy, as unmanned planes can loiter over people’s backyards and snap pictures for far longer than piloted aircraft. The government is anticipating that drone makers could generate a windfall of cash as drones move from a military to a civilian role: Jim Williams of the Federal Aviation Administration told the Wednesday conclave of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) that the potential market for government and commercial drones could generate “nearly $90 billion in economic activity” over the next decade. $90 billion.
5 Homeland Security ‘Bots Coming to Spy on You (If They Aren’t Already)
Robert Beckhusen, 02.08.13
It’s been 10 years since the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) started up operations. During that decade, DHS has moved to the forefront of funding and deploying the robots and drones that could be coming soon to a neighborhood near you. DHS funds research and development for surveillance robots. It provides grant money by the hundreds of thousands to police agencies to buy their own. And sometimes it’s bought and deployed robots — for their skies, the ground and the waters — of its own, usually concentrated along the border. It’s not clear how many of those robots police operate, and law enforcement isn’t by any means the only domestic market for the ‘bots. But the trend lines point toward more robotic spy tools for law enforcement in more places — with more DHS cash. But it’s not going to be simple. The Federal Aviation Administration is cautious about opening the skies to unmanned vehicles — so much so that Congress and the Obama administration ordered it to ease up on restrictions by 2015. But not all spy robots fly. DHS is also developing robots that resemble fish, and deploys tunnel-bots deep into drug-smuggling tunnels along the border.
U.S. Navy Wants Robots that Respond to Pheromones
02/07/13 — Aircraft carrier crews are likely to get rather pungent as they perform the hard tasks of assembling, loading and hauling the massive weaponry that gives the U.S. Navy its edge. To make their lives easier, the Navy’s exploring the idea of developing a “robotic semiautonomous swarm on a ship” that…
Attack of the Drones: The Worrying Automation of Warfare
Washington College Elm-Mar 1, 2013
Troubling as the use of drones is, I believe it to be indicative of a larger trend that shows no signs of abating anytime soon: the automation of warfare.
INDUSTRY AND MANUFACTURING
Foxconn Freezes Hiring in China
02/20/13
Foxconn Technology Group has frozen the overall hiring of factory workers in China as the assembler of gadgets for Apple…
Spanish Pallet Manufacturer Relies on Automation and Robotics to …
Pallet Enterprise-Feb 28, 2013
AGLOLAK: Spanish pallet manufacturer pleases demanding customers through automation including robotics and proper lumber sourcing from certified sources …
The Automation Element Of Re-Shoring
Manufacturing.net-Feb 20, 2013
Automation GT, an automation design-and-manufacturing firm based out of Escondido, Calif., is at the forefront of the “re-shoring” trend that has been sweeping …
AGRICULTURE AND FOOD PRODUCTION
Drone Boosters Say Farmers, Not Cops, Are the Biggest U.S. Robot Market
Spencer Ackerman, 02.05.13
When the flying robots that loiter in Afghanistan’s and Yemen’s airspace come home, they won’t just be headed for the local police station. They might prefer a pastoral existence of spraying crops, scanning soil patterns and other features of America’s farms. No, Predators and Reapers aren’t going to scan large swaths of vegetation for suspected militants. And there’s tremendous interest from state and local law enforcement in drones as surveillance tools. But to Chris Mailey, a vice president with the drone promotion organization known as AUVSI, the cop shops represent short money. “Agriculture,” Mailey tells Danger Room, “is gonna be the big market.”
Yogurt boom means boom times for Atlas Automation
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle-Feb 20, 2013
‘The yogurt expansion that started four years ago, we were kind of on the ground floor of that,’ says Atlas Automation President Joe Scarfone. The company …
SERVICE SECTOR
Bartendro robot mixologist crafts cocktails with Raspberry Pi
Mar 04, 2013, 1:28 PM | By Amanda Kooser
Cocktails may never be the same again. Robot can handle up to 15 bottles of booze and mixers and can dispense precision cocktails in less than 10 seconds.
Korea’s Robotic Nurse to Begin Hospital Trials
02/07/13 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration may have recently approved iRobot’s telepresence robot RP-VITA for use in hospitals, but as far as medical robots are concerned Japan and Korea remain ahead of the curve. The latest in a line of nurse droids is the KIRO-M5, a compact transportation robot that can carry…
The rise of robotics in medicine | MedCityNews
March 2, 2013 by Sabine Hauert
Robots represent a vision of the future, a vision that inspires two parts amazement and one part fear of being replaced by superior machines. In manufacturing, robots have been deployed since the 1960’s to exceed human precision and productivity.
Augmented realty interface for telepresence robots
by Wolfgang Heller, February 22, 2013
Telepresence robots are remote controlled cameras on wheels that are connected via Wi-Fi to a user’s computer, mobile phone or tablet. The user can communicate via a “human-scale” robot with other people and move around a workplace or home.
Veebot’s Robot to automate blood draws
February 18, 2013 by Andra Keay
Taking blood is a fine art. Even the most experienced practioner may require more than one stab to find a vein—seems only natural to wonder, might a robot do the job better? Mountain View’s Veebot thinks so.
Robot-assisted hysterectomies booming, but better?
USA TODAY-by Kim Painter-Feb 19, 2013
While robotic vs laparoscopic hysterectomies are similar in outcome for the patient, one consideration for the surgeon is the physical discomfort that results from …
Honda demos lawn mower robot at PGA Tour in Florida
The Japan Daily Press-Mar 4, 2013
As early as last year, Honda has already announced the release in the market of its first home product. This year, the Japanese automaker’s robotic lawn mower, …
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Student Attends School Via Robot
02/21/13 — In a school hallway, a U.S. teacher takes her students to the library, leading a single-file line of giggling boys and girls that’s perfectly ordinary until you get to a sleek white robot with a video screen showing the face of a smiling, chubby-cheeked boy. Devon Carrow’s life-threatening allergies don’t allow him to go to school. But the robot with a wireless video hookup gives him the school experience remotely, allowing him to participate in class, stroll through the hallways, hang out at recess and even take to the auditorium stage when there’s a show. What’s most remarkable is how unremarkable…
Rapyuta: The RoboEarth Cloud Engine
by Dominique Hunziker February 25, 2013
In recent years cloud computing has made an entrance into our lives. Naturally, this begs the question how cloud computing can be used in robotics applications. With Rapyuta, the RoboEarth Cloud Engine, an open source software package is released that tries to answer this question. Rapyuta provides an easy solution specifically tailored to robotics applications.
Infographic – Marketing Automation 101
CMSWire-Mar 1, 2013
Cloud-based marketing automation software provider Marketo is attempting to reveal the “magic behind the curtain” of marketing automation in a new …
Automation key to Vodafone’s M2M strategy
Total Telecom-Feb 28, 2013
“It works out of the box with Vodafone’s global M2M platform,” said Salminen, which is in line with the operator’s bid to maximise automation. However, for …
IT Automation: 5 Ways To Hit The “Ugly” Stuff First
ReadWriteWeb-Feb 19, 2013
But while technology lies at the heart of automating processes, its use in IT support is still woefully limited. That’s not to suggest that nothing has been done; most …
PACKING, SHIPPING AND TRANSPORTATION
Automation: the key to efficiency in packaging & processing solutions
FoodBev.com-by Shaun Weston-Mar 4, 2013
Paolo Scarabelli, manager embedded solutions, technologies & service products at Tetra Pak, discusses how the evolution of automation is driving bigger …
ENERGY AND RESOURCE EXTRACTION
First line of Northland’s Kaunisvaara iron ore mine goes online
Automation World-Feb 27, 2013
Power and automation company ABB announced that it recently completed commissioning of the integrated electrification and automation system for the first process line of Northland Resources’ Kaunisvaara iron ore concentrator plant. The site is located approximately 100 km north of the Arctic Circle, in Sweden. The initial orders were awarded in the first quarter of 2012 by Metso Minerals and Northland Resources.
Home automation systems growing
SunHerald.com-Feb 23, 2013
ABI Research, a technology-focused market research firm, said 1.5 million home-automation systems were installed worldwide last year, almost double the …
Robot called ‘Yeti’ finds cracks in Antarctic ice
NBCNews.com (blog)-15 hours ago
Meet Yeti, a faithful rover of the robotic kind that sniffs out dangerous crevasses for convoys crossing the glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland, explores ice …
JOB DISPLACEMENT DEBATE
Labour markets: The robot menace
Mar 1st 2013, 6:58 from Free exchange
ONE might say it is an encouraging sign that public worry over technology has (for the most part) turned from fear of stagnation to fear of technological unemployment thanks to too-rapid change. Signs of technological advancement are everywhere. Watson is shrinking, getting faster, and learning new skills. Google is bringing us driverless cars and the wonder that is this. Robots are looking ever more amazing, amazing, amazing. What can we expect, economically, from such changes?
Skidelsky on robots and more leisure
Izabella Kaminska | Feb 19 17:16
Love him or loathe him, Robert Skidelsky’s prose always makes for a good read.
His latest offering comes by way of Project Syndicate and relates to the issue of robots and the rise of automation. To what degree are we really approaching a leisure society and how best to respond to the changes afoot?
BofA plans drive on commercial banking
…new head of commercial banking, says he is investing in the business, adding about 50 bankers as a first step even as more automation brings job losses in administrative roles. “We have invested and we will invest more,” he said, while declining to… By Tom Braithwaite in New York
Is it time to ditch offshore services for automation for security sake?
ComputerWeekly.com (blog)-Mar 4, 2013
I have recently written about IT and back office automation and its impact on outsourcing and more particularly offshoring. Here is a guest blog post on the …
Five jobs a robot could never steal
The Guardian-Mar 1, 2013
Look about and you’ll see here’s a lot of robot talk going down right now. It’s not confined to the usual places; among aficionados of /r/bioniclove for instance, …
CounterPunch-Mar 1, 2013
And automakers now have robots that don’t need bathroom breaks and have no inclination toward collective bargaining to build cars. What ties technology, in …
GOVERNMENT, POLITICS, AND LAW
Automation Federation works with White House and US government …
InTech-Feb 14, 2013
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA (14 February 2013) –Working with the Obama administration, the Automation Federation is helping to forge …
Man Charged For Shooting Robot
Popular Science-20 hours ago
An Ohio man has been charged for shooting a robot. Michael Blevins was charged with vandalism of government property, after drunkenly firing at a police robot …
Should we put robots on trial?
Boston Globe-Mar 1, 2013
But experts in artificial intelligence and the emerging field of robot ethics say that is likely to change. With the advent of technological marvels like the self-driving …
BUSINESS OF AUTOMATION AND ROBOTICS
PR2 maker Willow Garage turns to commercial robotics
Feb 11, 2013, 9:30 PM | By Tim Hornyak
Following a report that it will close, the popular startup says it will instead become a self-sustaining company.
ROV market study shows dramatic growth for 2013-2023
Posted 02/19/13 at 03:28 PM
… In a new report analyzing the uses and needs for remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV) by the global oil and gas industry, Visiongain, a British research provider, has projected positive growth for both makers and users. They project rental and manufacturing revenue for ROVs in 2013 to be $2.5 billion. … Visiongain’s report, ROVs in the Oil Gas Industry 2013-2023, is available for purchase for $2,250. … The list of companies included in the report is extensive and can be downloaded for free by clicking on the “Companies Listed” tab here.
2012 Record Year for US Robot Industry
Posted 02/08/13 at 10:58 PM
… 25,500 robots were sold in the US in 2012; $1.66 billion in revenue. This is a 17% year-over-year increase in units and 27% in dollars. … Robotics Industry Association (RIA) estimates that 225,000 robots are now working in US factories. This represents 10% robot density, i.e., only 10% of companies that could benefit from using robots have done so thus far.
Factory automation companies join forces
Materials Handling World Magazine-Mar 5, 2013
The Finnish manufacturer of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), Fastems Oy Ab, which also builds robotic cells for automating machine tools, has purchased …
Robotics Innovation Challenge 2013 | Robotdalen
February 28, 2013 by Andra Keay
Robotdalen is a Swedish robotics initiative with the mission to enable commercial success of new ideas and research within robotics & automation.
Mitsubishi Electric Expands Automation Business in India
Control Engineering Asia-Mar 5, 2013
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has announced that its subsidiary Mitsubishi Electric India will host a new factory automation (FA) development center on its …
Detroit Tech: Automation Alley 2012 Report Says Engineering …
Huffington Post-Feb 5, 2013
Detroit’s tech industry growth is outpacing national hubs like Silicon Valley, Boston and Chicago in a number of categories, according to the latest annual report …
Automation and Manufacturing Among the Most Disruptive
Automation World-Feb 26, 2013
For much of our lives, we come to understand that being disruptive is not a good thing. During our school years, being disruptive could land us in all kinds of trouble. But in the business world, being disruptive can mean the difference between leading your industry or becoming one of its many followers. Most mentions of “disruptive” companies usually focus on Silicon Valley innovators developing the latest and greatest computing technologies. But a recent list of the 50 most disruptive companies, published by MIT Technology Review, focused on what companies did over the past year to “strengthen their hold on a market, challenge the leaders of a market, or create a new market.”
Blazing Fast Staubli Robot Picks 200 Items Per Minute
Singularity Hub-by Peter Murray-Feb 26, 2013
Even John Henry, had he been a factory picker instead of a steel driver, couldn’t keep up with this robot. The Switzerland-based TP80 Fast Picker robot by …
RESEARCH AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS
How a Monkey Can Mentally Control a Robot 7,000 Miles Away
February 22, 2013 – Miguel Nicolelis is an ambitious man. For years he’s been decoding brain signals and trying to use them as electrical commands for robots—and now he’s at a stage where he can get a monkey to mentally control a robot which is 7,000 miles away. More »
Meet Pneupard, Osaka University’s Air-Powered Cheetah Robot
POSTED BY: Jason Falconer / Mon, February 25, 2013
Roboticists around the world are in the process of reverse engineering the anatomical construction of cheetahs and other cats in an attempt to develop faster and more agile legged robots. The latest project, dubbed the Pneupard, hails from Osaka University. Although still early in development, the new biomimetic platform stands out from some of the others through its use of pneumatic artificial muscles as its primary means of locomotion.
IFR Press Release – IFR International Federation of Robotics
CEO Statements at IFR Round Table 2013
Robots are the Future
The 4th IFR CEO Round Table discussion on 22 January 2013 at the Automate in Chicago focused on the impact of industrial robots on employment.
CEOs of the global robotics industry present in the audience took the opportunity to give their statement to “Robots are the Future”.
New robot advances underwater research
University of Delaware Review-Mar 4, 2013
The robot has a front camera, a frontward high definition camera, a rear camera and sonar capabilities and is controlled by a joystick, which moves it to the front, …
BigDog Robot Can Now Hurl Cinder Blocks
PC Magazine-by Angela Moscaritolo-Mar 1, 2013
The four-legged robot, developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from the U.S. Army’s Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance, can now pick up and hurl …
Mitsubishi Electric Robot picks stem cells
Process & Control Today-9 hours ago
A dynamic British company has harnessed the precision of robots, flexibility of machine vision and powerful laboratory automation software to push forward …
Robot Of The Week: Artas Harvests Living Human Hairs, One By One
Popular Science-Mar 1, 2013
Artas is the first ever FDA-approved hair transplant robot, designed to accomplish the painstaking, yet technically difficult task of harvesting hundreds to …
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