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China released an open source kung-fu robot and we're not really sure why

The G1 robot isn’t just agile — it’s learning kung fu.

Meet the smallest and fastest robot-insects ever developed

The mini-bug and water strider open up new realms in the field of small robots.

Scientists create healing microbots made of human skin cells

Scientists have developed free-swimming biological robots using human tracheal cells. These tiny machines can heal your body from the inside.

Researchers tried out AI preachers -- and it didn't go so well

AI may look all set to replace human artists, engineers, writers, and coders, but preachers are probably safe.

One Japanese railway company build huge, humanoid robots to repair its power lines

I've never wanted to be a railway worker as much as I do right now.

New four-legged robots designed to work together to accomplish difficult tasks

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Submersible robots help us better understand ocean health and carbon flows

Good bots.

Scientists observe nanobots coordinating inside a living host for the first time

We're talking swarms of millions of bots here.

Researchers train robot swarm to serve as 'real-life paintbrushes'

Can robots play a part in producing art? This team believes so.

Half of Twitter accounts discussing 'reopening America' are bots

Researchers have uncovered a sophisticated campaign orchestrated to sow discord.

Talkative robots make humans chat too -- especially robots that show 'vulnerability'

Robots admitting to making a mistake can improve communication between humans -- at least during games.

Flying 'Robotic pigeon' brings us closer to bird-like drones

Engineers created PigeonBot, adding pigeon feathers to a flying robot

The world's first 'living machines' can move, carry loads, and repair themselves

They can move, carry loads, and repair themselves.

Autonomous killer drone aims to save the Great Barrier Reef

Can we please call these things Star Destroyers? Please?

The Twitter discussion around vapes is grand -- and 70% filled with bots

Welcome to selling strategies, where ethics are made up and your health doesn't matter!

Biology can help patch the flaws in our robots, metastudy reports

Life to the rescue!

Researchers quantify basic rules of ethics and morality, plan to copy them into smart cars, even AI

Be good, drive good.

Endowing AI with confidence and doubt will make it more useful, paper argues

More like us, in other words.

Knowing for the sake of knowing: algorithm developed to hardwire curiosity into robots

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but cats don't run on microprocessors. I think.

These tiny birds' hopping could teach robots how to navigate rough environments

Hoppity hop.

Your robot always dropping stuff? Try these gecko-inspired pads

A gripping tale.

Robot see, robot do: MIT software allows you to instruct a robot without having to code

No code? No problem!

This robot works six times faster than humans -- and it's putting jobs at risk

The time where we could speak about 'robots taking our jobs' at the future tense has passed.

First deep-sea mining operation scheduled to start in 2019 -- here are the bots that will do it

Whether you agree to the idea or not, the bots sure are awesome.

Emotional computers really freak people out -- a new take on the uncanny valley

Be like us, but not us.

Check the wheels on that thing: Boston Dynamics' latest robot overlord

One award-winning company is back in style with another crazy robot.

Even bots have arguments. Some Wikipedia bots can undo each other for years before settling an edit

An important incursion into bot sociology.

Chinese factory replaces 90% of human workers with robots. Production rises by 250%, defects drop by 80%

After a factory in Dongguan, China, replaced most of its workers with robots, it witnessed a spectacular rise in productivity.

New robot picks peppers like a human

Robots are getting smarter and smarter.

NASA plans to build robots that explore frozen worlds from metallic glass so they don't shatter

"Cold enough to shatter robots" is pretty cold in my book.

Meet Sawyer, the friendly robot that wants to disrupt manufacturing and education

Sawyer can do just about anything, even 'wink'.

Robotic surveillance without enforcement isn't enough to stop people from stealing, a new study found

To be fair, students will do insane things for food.

The army's amazing 1962 four-legged Pedipulator beat Star Wars to it by 15 years

The '60s were very creative.

Scientists create light-activated stingray robot composed of rat cells

A stingray created from living rat cells blurs the line between technology and nature.

Six cockroach-sized micro robots tow a 3,900-Pound Car

Inspired by ants, researchers mimicked the insects' individual super strength and collective hive mind in tiny robots. Each weighs only 0.2 pounds, but six were enough to tow a 3,900 pound-car, with one of the researchers seated as well.

How robots are transforming healthcare

The world of robotics is extremely exciting. Everyday we come closer to building R2-D2, Terminators, and the Iron Giant. The days of having a Betamax, our “personal healthcare assistant” are even closer still, thanks to robotics in healthcare.

The star(fish) destroying robot is yellow and deadly

Picture this: A city under siege. Many of the outlying buildings are old, dry, lifeless shells of their former beauty as nearly 50 percent of the population is wiped out, consumed by ravenous invaders. And the only hope of lifting the siege lies with a poison injecting, yellow robot.

RoboHow: the Wikipedia that teaches robots how to cook

An European initiative founded in 2012, dubbed RoboHow, comes to take up the challenge of improving the way robots work and interact with humans by creating a database that should help robots learn and share information with each other (even by using actual language), mimicking human learning processes.

University of California 3D printed fish are the most advanced microbots we built to date

Nanoengineers from the San Diego University of California used innovative, self-developed 3D printing methods to create multipurpose, fish-shaped microbots - that they call microfish - which can swim around efficiently through liquids, powered by hydrogen peroxide and are magnetically controlled.

MIT tackling more serious science: they program beer-delivering robots

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is on the brink of revolutionizing relaxation with their recent breakthrough: they have programmed two robots that can deliver beverages.

Suidobashi Heavy Industries accepts US's Megabot Inc challenge for a giant robot duel

Earlier this month, Megabots Inc issued a video challenge on Youtube to Suidobashi Heavy Industries, to pit the company's' biggest, baddest robots against each other in a duel of giant robots. And grab the popcorn, put the beer on ice and get your geek on, because Japanese robot manufacturer has accepted the challenge from its US competitor, Efe news agency reported.

When robots are everywhere, what will humans be good for?

This question was prompted to Ray Kurzweil - well known futurologist, pioneer of the Singularity Movement and Director of Engineering at Google - by a member of the audience during a Q&A session at an Executive Program hosted at Singularity University last October. You might not give it much thought now, but the truth is half of all American jobs could be replaced by robots in just a couple of decades. If you're a teller, supermarket cashier, call center operator or even a famer, you'll likely lose your job in the coming decades. So, what's to do then? Should we all rally and ban robots? It's no easy topic, but at the same time it's important, I think, not to panic. We need to remember that this isn't the first time something like this happened. It's the old human vs automation problem. How many millions of jobs were lost to mass production in the late XIXth century? How many more once computers started permeating society? At the same time, new jobs were made. Just look at where the information industry is today. The major challenge is not if new jobs can be made. This isn't really problem. The real challenge is to make these available at the right pace and make sure people have the necessary resources to repurpose their skill set. I'll leave you to Ray.

Meet the world's first robot chef, for the rich and lazy

Tired of cooking your own food, hiring help or eating out? Tired of eating, for that matter? Just kidding. The last one might be for another cyberpunk story. Today, however, I present to you the first robotic chef in the world. For an one time (most likely very hefty) fee, you too could have your very own gourmet chef, at your disposal 24/7. Using its fine mechanical arms, the chef bot from London’s Moley Robotics could potentially cook any kind of food. For instance, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Shanghai this past weekend the robot chef cooked and served crab bisque (soup). Right now this is the dish it knows how to make, but once it'll start shipping it should come complete with 2,000 recipes, according to the developers.

Anti-robot protest rallied at SXSW is just a marketing stunt - the message isn't

About two dozen University of Texas students gathered on Saturday at the entrance to the SXSW tech and entertainment festival to voice their concerns about the risks artificial intelligence might pose to humanity. Though largely ignored by hipster pedestrians nearby, the protest does raise some legitimate concerns even though technology is still far off from any Skynet scenario. Thankfully, we might never cross this SciFi threshold.

Swarm of 1,000 robots self-assemble in complex shapes

In a breakthrough in robotics, researchers have programmed a swarm consisting of a whooping 1,024 members which can assemble in programmable 2-D shapes. The demonstration might provide insights in how natural self-assembling swarms operate, like ants who join up to form bridges for the good of the colony.

Origami-bot folds itself from one single sheet of electronics, then walks away

Inspired by the ancient Japanese art of Origami, engineers at Harvard and MIT have developed an amazing robot that stats off as one single sheet, then folds itself into a complex shape in under four minutes, before making a gentleman’s exit. The potential applications of this display are numerous. For instance, launching payload in space […]

This author edits 10,000 Wikipedia entries a day

Sverker Johansson could encompass the definition of prolific. The 53-year-old Swede has edited so far 2.7 million articles on Wikipedia, or 8.5% of the entire collection. But there’s a catch – he did this with the help of a bot he wrote. Wait, you thought all Wikipedia articles are written by humans? A good day’s work […]

Robot fish is remarkably similar to the real thing

Isaac Asimov, the father of the three laws of robotics, made some startling predictions many years ago about how thet future might look like. He’s been dead on in some respects, however the writer miscalculated how advanced robots would be in 2014 and how integrated these would become in human society. You see, before robots […]

Half of U.S. jobs at risk of being taken over by computers

  An Oxford study that assessed the risks that the introduction of automation in work sectors currently managed by people might have on employment found that 47% of jobs in the U.S. could be replaced by computers/robots. Most of these jobs are low-wage and routine-based, however the study stresses that once with the advent of […]

Psychic robot can anticipate when you want a beer and pours you one

There are all kinds of robots nowadays that are here to assist humans with their daily chores, both at work and home alike. I think a lot of us have dreamed and even spoken out loudly, of course jokingly, how cool would it be to have a robot walk along side you and reach out […]