Robopocalypse Report #112

Drones:

Canada has introduced strict rules for drone flights.

DJI drones can fly over crowds, if they have parachutes.

Drones have been shown to make traffic accident assessments safer and faster.

Dronestagram's drone photo contest had some breath taking entries.

The FAA is proposing relaxing the rules on flying drones.

Heathrow Airport was shutdown because of drones.

Intelligent Energy claims a new endurance record for hydrogen powered flight by a quad copter: 70 minutes.

The NYPD deployed a drone on New Year's Eve for security purposes.

The Severn Bridge in Britain was shutdown because someone started flying a drone from one of its towers.

A wireless tech company has found a way to charge drones without landing.

Self Driving Cars:

What is the future of transportation in the Automated Age (aka robopocalypse)?

Are self driving car efforts stalling?

Australia's autonomous train is being called the world's longest robot.

Baidu's self driving cars can handle speed bumps and parking lots now.

China is launching automated high speed trains.

DoorDash has teamed with GM's Cruise to test self driving cars for deliveries in San Francisco.

Intel's Mobileye tech is helping China's public transit become autonomous.

Hyundai has unveiled its autonomous charging concept.

KIA is looking past self driving cars to the next step.

Panasonic unveiled its self driving vehicle concept, the SPACe_C.

Stop and Shop will have self driving mini markets come to your house.

There is a self driving robotic bar.  Kid you not.

Toyota's self driving Lexus is testing two different self driving technologies.

And Toyota's self driving tech is improving.

Yandex's self driving car demo at CES has no safety driver.

3d Printing:

A new technique can 3d print 100 times faster than with melted filament layers.

In Eidhoven, a 3d printing house factory is being rolled out.

Robotics:

2018 robotics in review.

Breadbot can produce a new loaf of freshly baked bread every 6 minutes.

Caper's smart cart uses software bots to allow customers to skip checkout lines.

Hyundai has a new walking 'car.'

The Israeli robot ElliQ is designed to engage and interact with the elderly.

Pepsi is testing snack delivery bots on college campuses.

Police ended a standoff at a gas station by delivering a vape pen.

Robot butler dreams are getting closer to reality.

Watch this robot teach itself to walk.

This robot dog taught itself to walk.

A new approach will improve robots ability grasp.

A robot is helping with some experimental paleontology.

A Russian company claimed a self driving Tesla ran over its robot.  It appears to have been staged.

Segway is getting into the automated delivery business.

The Temi telepresence robot has added Alexa to its capabilities.

UBtech's Walker robot is intended to help at home.

Washington State University has its own robot for elder care.

Exoskeletons:

Atoun has unveiled two new exoskeletons.

Neofect has a robotic glove for those with hand paralysis.

Samsung has their own exoskeletons.

Sarcos Robotics has an exoskeleton capable of lifting 200 lbs.

Toyota's Mobility conference had ride share wheelchairs (!) and exoskeletons.

Whill's self driving wheel chair is coming.

Cyborgism:

Facebook's Zuckerberg and his wife funded brain implantable devices.

Software Bots:

China is flourishing with AI in no small part because of all the health care data and very lax rules regarding its sharing.

DeepSqueek is a software bot designed to interpret what sounds rodents are making.

Google's Assistant will soon be listening in on 1 billion devices.  Hello, big brother!

Google's AI is helping book flights online.

IBM is killing off Watson Workspace.

The Mayo Clinic is using software bots to detect heart disease.

Microsoft is stripping Cortana out of the its search.

The mining industry hasn't embraced software bots yet.

Did Numenta have a breakthrough in software bots?

A software bot using machine learning might have found an unsolvable math problem.

Software bots can help ID problems in EKGs.

A software bot can diagnose genetic illnesses from people's pictures.

A new software bot can listen for unusual sounds in your home and alert you if something is amiss.

New software bots are going to be used to crackdown on password sharing for video services like netflix.

Yet another software bot can detect if you have a urinary tract infection.

Software bots threaten privacy of health care data.

Software bots can now ID an individual zebrafish in a shoal of 100.

Software bots are starting to be able to organize what they see.

Unprovability is becoming a problem for whether or not software bots are actually useful for some problems.

Virtual assistants are hitting a wall.

Automation:

Kroger and Microsoft are testing 'connected' grocery stores.

An automated chemical compound fabricating lab.

The hotel is Japan run by robots is getting rid of half of them.

META:

Americans want AI regulated, but don't trust anyone to do it.

It's getting hard to tell what's automated or not.

What happens when you automate your coworkers out of a job?

LG's vision of the future has creeped some out.

Will the end of Moore's Law halt the Singularity?

Did GM's decline come from trying to automate?

The robopocalypse has been displacing some workers, but not all.

We should not freak out over the robopocalypse.

Finland has an ambitious plan to teach everyone the basics of AI.