Rise of Robots: Boon for Companies, Tax Headache for Lawmakers
Linda A. Thompson for Bloomberg News Agency: European lawmakers are grappling for answers to a question that until recently seemed like the stuff of science fiction: If robots take our jobs, who will pay taxes?
In an age of unprecedented technological change occurring at a faster rate than the Industrial Revolution, concerns over the growing robotization and automation of work have prompted fears about mass unemployment and plummeting tax revenue in the near future, pitting companies and robotics manufacturers against lawmakers and worker advocates.
The issue is taking on new urgency ahead of a Feb. 16 vote before the EU Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee on whether to create a robotics agency to deliberate on tax and liability issues. Cont'd...
New Software to Coordinate Entire Work Cell
This new software is the first of its kind to connect all of your devices from a single controller, which extends the smart, flexible power of our robots to the entire work cell and provides unparalleled speed to deployment.
Are there enough robots?
Future trends indicate that there will be a concentration on the collaboration of human and machine, simplified applications, and light-weight robots. We will also see an increased focus on modular robots and robotic systems, which will be marketed at exceptionally alluring prices.
The Trends of Customized, Standardized, Modularity and Platform in Robots
Christensen's theory: from integrated approaches to modular approaches
How Dynamic Group Quadrupled Production Capacity with Collaborative Robots
This application produces a medical device with parts that are extremely heat sensitive, so cycle times have to be consistent from part to part.
Raspberry Pi-powered arm: This kit aims to make robotics simple enough for kids
Nick Heath for TechRepublic: Think it's tricky to build and program a robot arm? Think again.
Powered by the Raspberry Pi, the MeArm Pi is a robot arm designed to be simple enough that kids aged 11+ can build and program it.
The lightweight plastic arm, which can pick up small objects such as Lego bricks, comes as a kit that keeps the number of screws to a minimum and is relatively straightforward to assemble using the included hex keys. It can be controlled via the Pi, either using joysticks attached to the included Pi HAT add-on board or by programming it from the Pi. Cont'd...
Rethink Robotics Releases Intera 5: A New Approach to Automation
Rethink Robotics announced Intera® 5, a first-of-its-kind software platform that connects everything from a single robot controller, extending the smart, flexible power of Rethink Robotics' Sawyer™ to the entire work cell and simplifying automation with unparalleled ease of deployment.
Built on the backbone of the industry's best train-by-demonstration software that powers the world's fastest-to-deploy robots, Intera 5 is paving the way for connected manufacturing environments and helping companies build factories of the future. Intera 5 fundamentally changes the need for integration, making it substantially easier and more affordable, allowing manufacturers to deploy full work cell automation in a matter of hours, not weeks.
Intera 5 is much more than the latest version of Rethink Robotics' software; it's a new way to approach automation that allows manufacturers to control the robots, orchestrate the work cell and collect data. Full Press Release:
Robotics-focused ETFs see big gains, Trump could hasten trend
Ryan Vlastelica for MarketWatch: If robots are taking jobs, should you invest in the robot makers?
That’s the argument behind a pair of outperforming exchange-traded funds that track the robotics industry, which could continue seeing strong growth as more positions get automated by machines or algorithms.
In a Jan. 23 note, UBS named automation and robotics as one of the two areas of technological innovation that would drive productivity over the coming decade, along with the digital data industry.
“Both have the potential to profoundly transform the structure of our economy, disrupt existing business models, but also create substantial growth opportunities for those well-positioned to participate,” the firm wrote, singling out the ROBO Global Robotics & Automation Index ETF ROBO, +0.59% as a fund that would benefit from this trend, with the investment time horizon of a decade. Cont'd...
Automation in IV Pharmacy Compounding
Automation in the pharmacy for IV drug compounding is still in its infancy.
Microbots: Microsoft's multi-pronged robotics play takes shape
Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft: In the early 2000s, Microsoft was all-in on robotics. By the middle of that decade, the company seemingly had all but abandoned the robotics space.
But this may be the year that Microsoft may be ready to get back into robotics, on multiple fronts.
When Microsoft founder Bill Gates was still involved in the day-to-day operations of the company, robotics was slated to be one of Microsoft's next big things. Microsoft built a programming model and framework for developers working on anything from Lego robots to industrial-scale robots. However, that product, "Microsoft Robotics Studio," never really went beyond the academic and hobbyist communities and the company's ambitions in this space withered.
Cut to 2017. These days, the home for a good chunk of the Microsoft current robotics work is apparently in Microsoft Research (MSR) -- specifically in the AI + Research (AI+R) Group under executive vice president Harry Shum. (I say "apparently" here because Microsoft officials declined to answer any of my questions on the company's robotics initiatives.) Shum is known for his work in computer vision and graphics and has a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon. Cont'd...
360° Optics Tutorial
Enabling a full object view with just one camera.
Robotics, artificial intelligence, and 5G are at the heart of Theresa May's new industrial strategy
Oscar Williams-Grut for Business Insider: The government is putting cutting edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), 5G wireless internet, "smart" energy technology, and robotics at the heart of its new post-Brexit industrial strategy.
Theresa May is set to launch the government's "Modern Industrial Strategy" on Monday at a regional meeting of the cabinet in the North West.
The Prime Minister announced in a release on Sunday evening that the strategy would be focused around ten key strategic pillars, the first of which is: "Investing in science, research, and innovation." Cont'd...
RTOS 101: Semaphores and Queues
The use of a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) is increasingly common in embedded software designs.
Artificial fingertip that 'feels' wins international robotics competition
Phys.org: An open-source 3D-printed fingertip that can 'feel' in a similar way to the human sense of touch has won an international Soft Robotics competition for its contribution to soft robotics research.
Pushing the boundaries of soft robotics, the open-source tactile fingertip, known as TacTip, is a 3D-printed tactile sensor that has been developed by the Tactile Robotics Team from Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL).
The fingertip meets the need for a cheap, robust, versatile tactile sensor to give robots an artificial sense of touch. The sensor has a unique design in which a webcam is mounted inside a 3D-printed soft fingertip to track internal pins that act like touch receptors inside our own fingertips, making it cheap to build and highly customisable. Cont'd...
Robots Took My Job but I Don't Care
The company pays the robot monthly, plus payroll taxes. The robot pays income tax and a percentage of the robot's wages go to the RMWP. The RMWP (Robot Minimum Wage Plan) collects the money and distributes it to the displaced workers.
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Industrial Robotics - Featured Product
IntervalZero's RTX64
RTX64 turns the Microsoft 64-bit Windows operating system into a Real-time operating system (RTOS). RTX64 enhances Windows by providing hard real-time and control capabilities to a general purpose operating system that is familiar to both developers and end users. RTX64 consists of a separate real-time subsystem (RTSS) that schedules and controls all RTSS applications independently of Windows.RTX64 is a key component of the IntervalZero RTOS Platform that comprises x86 and x64 multicore multiprocessors, Windows, and real-time Ethernet (e.g. EtherCAT or PROFINET) to outperform real-time hardware such as DSPs and radically reduce the development costs for systems that require determinism or hard real-time.
