Last week, Berchtesgaden, Germany played host to the euRathlon, an outdoor robotics competition where 14 teams tested the intelligence, autonomy and grit of their robots that competed in mock emergency-response scenarios.
Three disaster scenarios tested the robots’ mettle: Mobile handling of hazardous materials, underground rescue from a smoke-filled environment and urban reconnaissance and surveillance. Robots also competed in a fourth category: Autonomous navigation using GPS.
The “reconnaissance and disposal of explosive devices” competition was open to the public and held at the Berchtesgaden train station. Visitors got to watch robots find and pick up duffel bags or suitcases from lockers and deactivate a mock explosive device.

Emergency Response Robots Battle For Honors

Too busy to vacuum your living room? Let Roomba the robot do it. Don’t want to risk a soldier’s life to disable an explosive? Let a robot do it.
It’s becoming more common to have robots sub in for humans to do dirty or sometimes dangerous work. But researchers are finding that in some cases, people have started to treat robots like pets, friends, or even as an extension of themselves. That raises the question, if a soldier attaches human or animal-like characteristics to a field robot, can it affect how they use the robot? What if they “care” too much about the robot to send it into a dangerous situation

Emotional attachment to robots could affect outcome on battlefield

Artificial muscles could allow robots to lift 80 times their own weight

It's a classic science fiction scene: an android is injured and its human-like exterior is laid bare to reveal the metallic gears and cables of its true mechanical nature. The future is, unsurprisingly, not likely to match this scenario as our ability to mimic biology with innovations like artificial muscles improves. The latest breakthrough in this field comes from the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Engineering where researchers have developed a “robotic” muscle that extends like real muscle tissue to five times its original length, has the potential to lift 80 times its own weight and holds out the promise of smaller, stronger robots capable of more refined movements.

Artificial muscles could allow robots to lift 80 times their own weight

Robert Atkinson: Robots Are Not the Enemy

The reality is that, far from being doomed by an excess of technology, we are actually at risk of being held back from too little innovation.

It has become a popular meme that “robots are destroying our jobs.” How else do we explain today’s persistent high unemployment?
While scores of pundits and analysts have made this claim in the last couple of years, perhaps no one has done more to popularize this theory than MIT scholars Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, authors of the widely cited e-book, Race Against The Machine. They argue workers are, “losing the race against the machine, a fact reflected in today’s employment statistics.”
To drive their thesis home, Brynjolfsson and McAfee point to the fact that after WWII productivity and employment lines increased in tandem, but beginning in 2000, the lines diverged, productivity continued to rise robustly but employment suddenly wilted. Aha, ipso facto. Here’s the problem, they claim.

- See more at: https://www.ideaslaboratory.com/2013/09/09/robert-atkinson-robots-are-not-the-enemy/#sthash.1uiWyTGv.dpuf

The reality is that, far from being doomed by an excess of technology, we are actually at risk of being held back from too little innovation.

It has become a popular meme that “robots are destroying our jobs.” How else do we explain today’s persistent high unemployment?
While scores of pundits and analysts have made this claim in the last couple of years, perhaps no one has done more to popularize this theory than MIT scholars Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, authors of the widely cited e-book, Race Against The Machine. They argue workers are, “losing the race against the machine, a fact reflected in today’s employment statistics.”
To drive their thesis home, Brynjolfsson and McAfee point to the fact that after WWII productivity and employment lines increased in tandem, but beginning in 2000, the lines diverged, productivity continued to rise robustly but employment suddenly wilted. Aha, ipso facto. Here’s the problem, they claim.

- See more at: https://www.ideaslaboratory.com/2013/09/09/robert-atkinson-robots-are-not-the-enemy/#sthash.1uiWyTGv.dpuf

The reality is that, far from being doomed by an excess of technology, we are actually at risk of being held back from too little innovation.

It has become a popular meme that “robots are destroying our jobs.” How else do we explain today’s persistent high unemployment?

While scores of pundits and analysts have made this claim in the last couple of years, perhaps no one has done more to popularize this theory than MIT scholars Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, authors of the widely cited e-book, Race Against The Machine. They argue workers are, “losing the race against the machine, a fact reflected in today’s employment statistics.”

To drive their thesis home, Brynjolfsson and McAfee point to the fact that after WWII productivity and employment lines increased in tandem, but beginning in 2000, the lines diverged, productivity continued to rise robustly but employment suddenly wilted. Aha, ipso facto. Here’s the problem, they claim.

Robert Atkinson: Robots Are Not the Enemy

Robert Atkinson: Robots Are Not the Enemy

 Robert Atkinson: Robots Are Not the Enemy

Robert Atkinson: Robots Are Not the Enemy

The reality is that, far from being doomed by an excess of technology, we are actually at risk of being held back from too little innovation.

It has become a popular meme that “robots are destroying our jobs.” How else do we explain today’s persistent high unemployment?
While scores of pundits and analysts have made this claim in the last couple of years, perhaps no one has done more to popularize this theory than MIT scholars Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, authors of the widely cited e-book, Race Against The Machine. They argue workers are, “losing the race against the machine, a fact reflected in today’s employment statistics.”
To drive their thesis home, Brynjolfsson and McAfee point to the fact that after WWII productivity and employment lines increased in tandem, but beginning in 2000, the lines diverged, productivity continued to rise robustly but employment suddenly wilted. Aha, ipso facto. Here’s the problem, they claim.

- See more at: https://www.ideaslaboratory.com/2013/09/09/robert-atkinson-robots-are-not-the-enemy/#sthash.1uiWyTGv.dpuf

The reality is that, far from being doomed by an excess of technology, we are actually at risk of being held back from too little innovation.

It has become a popular meme that “robots are destroying our jobs.” How else do we explain today’s persistent high unemployment?
While scores of pundits and analysts have made this claim in the last couple of years, perhaps no one has done more to popularize this theory than MIT scholars Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, authors of the widely cited e-book, Race Against The Machine. They argue workers are, “losing the race against the machine, a fact reflected in today’s employment statistics.”
To drive their thesis home, Brynjolfsson and McAfee point to the fact that after WWII productivity and employment lines increased in tandem, but beginning in 2000, the lines diverged, productivity continued to rise robustly but employment suddenly wilted. Aha, ipso facto. Here’s the problem, they claim.

- See more at: https://www.ideaslaboratory.com/2013/09/09/robert-atkinson-robots-are-not-the-enemy/#sthash.1uiWyTGv.dpuf