Items tagged with robots
It is almost tax season again here in the United States, but in the future, your fellow Americans might not be the only ones giving away a "pound of flesh" to the IRS. Bill Gates believes that robots should also pay their dues. The Microsoft co-founder recently stated in an interview that governments should tax...
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Starship isn’t just the name of a rocking 80’s band or an interstellar spacecraft -- it is also the name of a new company by former Skype co-founders which intends to improve local deliveries through self-driving, autonomous robots. A friendly little robot could soon be delivering your pepperoni pizza instead of a...
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The robot revolution will just have to wait, at least if Mercedes has anything to say about it. In a refreshing change of pace, Mercedes is handing out pink slips to part of its automated robotic work force, giving those jobs instead to actual human workers. Mercedes is essentially flipping the script on modern...
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Maybe we should cease development of artificial intelligence. Why? View it as a precautionary measure for the day when robots completely replace humans in the workforce. Think about it, do we really want to be bound by mechanical overlords who might one day decide we're more trouble than we're worth?
Sounds crazy...
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We all fear the day when humans end up under the mechanical thumbs of our eventual robot overlords, but for now, it's us who still reign over them. Such is also the result of a joint effort involving the Volvo Group and several partners to develop a robot that picks up trash under the supervision of a garbage truck...
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Sexual fembots don't exist outside of Hollywood movies, but just in case they ever become a reality, robot ethicists (yes, there's such a thing) are already campaigning against having sex with robots. Those who support the "Campaign Against Sex Robots" feel that shagging with a scrap of parts resembling a person is...
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The hitchhiking robot hitchBOT has traversed multiple countries by relying on the generosity of strangers, but its adventuring came to an abrupt and disastrous conclusion shortly after it arrived in the U.S. The place of hitchBOT’s demise turned out to be Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, which apparently...
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Just a few days after Steve Wozniak stirred fears with comments about the inevitability of humans becoming pets for superior robots, the Twittersphere has found further “evidence” that humanity’s end is nigh. A robot at an automotive plant in Germany killed a worker this week and the reporter who first covered the...
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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak isn't the only one envisioning a world where artificially intelligent systems rise up and rule over mankind. So Dr. Stuart Armstrong, an academic at the Future of Humanity at Oxford University. According to Armstrong, we're precariously close to creating computers that will ultimately...
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Foxconn CEO Terry Gou spoke out at a shareholder’s meeting to set the record straight on comments made at the beginning of the year about robots. It turns out that the era of robot-powered factories isn’t quite as near as the head of Foxconn seemed to imply in February and he’s holding the media responsible for...
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A group of French and American scientists publishing in the science journal Nature are reporting success in their attempt to develop software that allows damaged robots to quickly overcome many sustained injuries and continue with their tasks.
A major problem in robotics has long been the inability of the machines...
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Imagine going to the water's edge, wading into the sea, and dragging out...a blue whale. And not an easy to wrangle (comparatively speaking) baby blue whale either, but a fully grown, mature mammalian beast of the sea. This is the equivalency being offered to describe the astounding power of the oh-so-small MicroTug...
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Score a win for the robot species, which will soon be joining Foxconn's flesh and blood workers to help assemble Apple's forthcoming iPhone 6 device. So says Foxconn CEO Terry Gou, who announced the plan at a recent shareholder meeting, adding that Apple will become the first company to use the service. Citing a...
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Google is now the proud owner of Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that specializes in building dynamic robots and software for human simulation. You may have seen some of Boston Dynamics' creations already, especially if you've spent any amount of time browsing YouTube videos -- a 2 minute demonstration of the...
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Amazon isn't taking any chances with our future robotic overlords. To show that it's willing to play ball under a mechanical regime, Jeff Bezos recently went on "60 Minutes" and unveiled plans to use delivery drones to drop off packages to flesh and blood customers (or "servants," as robots will call them after the...
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The wonderful and terrifying robot future portended by Amazon’s delivery drones isn’t exclusive to the e-tailer giant; Google is getting in on the robot action, too. The company is looking to develop humanoid robots that could perform tasks such as manufacturing electronics, loading up products to ship...
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Believe it or not, it's earning seasons again, and a company that always seems to make things interesting in this regard is Amazon. While it's stock price is soaring, the past few quarters have shown tremendous revenue with next to no profit. This quarter, however, Amazon didn't manage to make a dime. While Q3 2013...
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You've probably heard the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," but did you ever equate it to being prepared for the inevitable robot uprising that will threaten the human race? Probably not, but that isn't stopping a group of Cambridge researchers from at least entertaining the idea. "Many...
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Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision) may have finally figured out a solution to all those pesky accusations of poor working conditions that keep popping up in headlines -- robots! The human condition being what it is, workers comprised of blood and guts tend to gripe and moan when employers saddle them with low wages, long hours, tedious tasks, and...
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According to China's Xinhua's news agency, Taiwanese technology bigwig Foxconn (otherwise known as Hon Hai Precision) plans to employ 1 million robots in the next three years to help curtail the rising costs of having to play real life humans, and also to improve efficiency. Terry Gou, founder and chairman of the...
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The "personal robots" market will explode in the next few years, and we don't mean all over your kitchen. ABI Research expects robots aimed at consumers to create a $19 billion market by 2017. Who wouldn't want one of the two new "personal presence" bots introduced this month by start-ups? Or Panasonic's new hair-washing robot? Vacuum robots...
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Not that CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) really needs any additional hype, but the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) wants to make sure that even with CES half a year away, that the media and analysts never forget that their technology extravaganza is on the horizon. The CEA sponsored a mini tradeshow in New York City this last week,...
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