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Police have received reports that two of the Burundi teenagers gone missing after an international robotics competition were seen crossing the border into Canada. The search for all the teens is ongoing, but police have no indication of foul play in their disappearance, Metropolitan Police spokeswoman Aquita Brown said. The teens seen crossing into Canada were 16-year-old Don Ingabire and 17-year-old Audrey Mwamikazi, Brown said.

WASHINGTON — D.C. police say that a robotics team from Burundi competing in the FIRST Global Challenge in D.C. is missing. According to authorities, the six members of the team were last seen near Constitution Hall around 5 p.m. on Tuesday, July 18. The organizers for the competition said the adult mentor of the team was unable to find the group of six students. The organization’s president contacted police and filed the proper reports. “Security of the students is of paramount importance to FIRST Global,” the organization said in a statement. “FIRST Global ensures that all students get to their...

‘Robot drowned’: Twitter baffled by cyborg’s apparent ‘suicide’ (PHOTOS) In another example of internet madness, the ‘death’ of a security robot in a Washington DC office fountain is making waves online. On Monday, news that a Knightscope security robot had fallen into a fountain was relayed on Twitter by Bilal Farooqui. READ MORE: Dubai’s first ‘Robocop’ begins patrolling streets “Our DC office building got a security robot. It drowned itself. We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots,” Farooqui said. From there internet denizens chimed in with their own theories, with some mocking and mourning the robot’s fate.

The second-highest-ranking general in the U.S. military on Tuesday warned lawmakers against equipping the armed forces with autonomous weapons systems that humans could lose control of and advocated for keeping the "ethical rules of war" in place. In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Gen. Paul Selva responded to a question from Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) about a Defense Department directive that requires a human operator to be involved in the decision-making process when it comes to taking lives with autonomous weapons systems. Selva warned lawmakers that the military should keep "the ethical rules of war in place...

A rapidly-growing robotics industry in India is helping usher in automation technology in companies. But at a time when the country is struggling to create jobs for millions of young people, the World Bank has warned that automation could put 70 percent of India’s jobs at risk. Anjana Pasricha has this report from New Delhi.

Google-owned robotics firm and “nightmare” factory Boston Dynamics has released video of its latest creation: a two-wheeled, four-legged hybrid robot named Handle. The robot can stand on four legs, like Boston Dynamics’ previous creations such as BigDog and Spot. But at the end of its back two legs are two stabilised wheels, which let it stand up vertically and roll around at speeds of up to nine miles per hour. Think “Terminator riding on a hoverboard” and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the impression Handle gives off. Boston Dynamics says the reason for the hybrid design is the...

Apple will invest in and promote “advanced manufacturing” in the US, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Wednesday after the somewhat uninspiring earnings report. It was one of the ways Apple would create jobs in America, he said. To do that, Apple would put $1 billion in a fund that would invest in “advanced manufacturing” companies. Apple has already “created two million jobs in America,” he said in the interview. This includes 80,000 jobs at Apple in the US; plus jobs at US suppliers, such as Corning, which makes the glass for the iPhone and iPad, and 3M,...

A viral video showing an army of little orange robots sorting out packages in a warehouse in eastern China is the latest example of how machines are increasingly taking over menial factory work on the mainland. The behind-the-scenes footage of the self-charging robot army in a sorting centre of Chinese delivery powerhouse Shentong (STO) Express was shared on People’s Daily’s social media accounts on Sunday.

In Richardson, a robot is reporting for its first day on the job. Dallas lawn care startup, Robin has installed 50 robotic lawnmowers in North Texas, with plans to roll out 50 to 100 more every month. “We’ve been running a lawn care business for the last 2 years. It’s grown very quickly to 6,000 customers. We see this as an opportunity to create a more reliable experience for our customers,” says Co-Founder and CEO Justin Crandall.

Who is winning the race for jobs between robots and humans? Last year, two leading economists described a future in which humans come out ahead. But now they’ve declared a different winner: the robots. The industry most affected by automation is manufacturing. For every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell by as much as three-fourths of a percent, according to a new paper by the economists, Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University. It appears to be the first study to quantify large, direct, negative effects of robots.

The next time you place an order at a fast food joint, you could see a robot behind the counter. Flippy is an AI-driven kitchen assistant that can flip burgers and place them on buns, and it debuted today at a CaliBurger restaurant in Pasadena, California. Flippy was developed by Miso Robotics and CaliBurger's owner, Cali Group. It uses cameras, sensors and deep learning software to locate ingredients in a kitchen without needing to reconfigure existing equipment. Not only does it position and flip the patties, it tracks their temperature and cooking time too. When the burgers are done, it...

© Provided by Vox Media, Inc. Idaho and Florida may be next. Virginia has made robotics history. The commonwealth is the first state to pass legislation allowing delivery robots to operate on sidewalks and crosswalks across the state. The new law goes into effect on July 1 and was signed into law by the governor last Friday. The two Virginia lawmakers who sponsored the bill, Ron Villanueva and Bill DeSteph, teamed up with Starship Technologies, an Estonian-based ground delivery robotics company, to draft the legislation. Robots operating under the new law won’t be able to exceed ten miles per hour...

Should robots pay taxes? It may sound strange, but a number of prominent people have been asking this question lately. As fears about the impact of automation grow, calls for a “robot tax” are gaining momentum. Earlier this month, the European parliament considered one for the EU. Benoît Hamon, the French Socialist party presidential candidate who is often described as his country’s Bernie Sanders, has put a robot tax in his platform. Even Bill Gates recently endorsed the idea. The proposals vary, but they share a common premise. As machines and algorithms get smarter, they’ll replace a widening share of...

The 3D-printed hands have individual solenoids that allow each finger to cover and uncover the holes on a real bagpipe... The main limitation of the robot is that it requires a human to blow into the instrument. That’s certainly not ideal if you want to listen to the sweet sounds of Scotland 24/7/365, but XenonJohn says he’s working on a new version that includes an air pump to automatically blow air into the bagpipes.

After a factory in Dongguan, China, replaced most of its workers with robots, it witnessed a spectacular rise in productivity. While some of the world’s leaders are obsessed with keeping people out of their country, an unspoken entity is slowly but certainly taking our jobs: robots. It’s been long discussed that robots and computers will start taking our jobs “in the near future” — well that near future is upon us and we’re not really prepared to deal with it. Of course, some jobs are more at risk than others, are few are as threatened as factory jobs. Advertisement According...

Boston Dynamics, the company behind some of the most impressively terrifying and terrifyingly impressive robots of the past decade, is demonstrating its softer side with a video showcasing the Alphabet-owned firm’s latest creation. The SpotMini is a sort of tiny robot giraffe capable of an impressive battery of skills, demonstrated in the video by jaunting up a flight of stairs, putting dishes in the dishwasher and (somewhat begrudgingly) delivering a can of soda. Boston Dynamics The robot is both more adorable (in that David Lynch directing a Transformers movie kind of way) and significantly smaller and lighter than the firm’s...

The sex robot industry is thriving, with some academics predicting that humans will be having more sex with robots that with each other by 2050. But while many people find the idea of sex with a mechanical object abhorrent, academics are keen to find out who is most willing to embrace (literally) this new technology. Speaking at the Love and Sex with Robots conference at Goldsmiths, University of London, Jessica M. Szczuka from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany took on the preconceptions of lonely men shacking up with cyber-lovers.

A robot went out of control at a technology fair in southern China’s Guangdong province Thursday, smashing a glass window and injuring a visitor.... An employee at Shenzhen Spreadview Century told Sixth Tone by phone that the staffer tried to pick up the robot, but that Fabo’s weight — 25 kilograms — was too much to handle, and the operator accidentally pushed the wrong button. Fabo’s automatic mode was turned off, which meant it could not avoid collisions by itself, he said... . The company had visited the injured person in the hospital and had paid compensation, the statement added.

In the future, robots will increasingly replace farm workers, using artificial intelligence to plant, grow and harvest our food. In fact, many farms are already using fleets of robots, which can tend to fruits and veggies more efficiently than a human can. Here's a look at seven machines that are currently aiding farmers around the world. 1) The Wall-Ye prunes vineyards 2) The BoniRob destroys 120 weeds per minute 3) Abundant Robotics' bot picks one ripe apple per second 4) The Blue River Lettuce Bot thins out lettuce fields 5) The Prospera bot 'sees' dying plants before farmers can 6)...

THE END OF ROBOTS, MORE OR LESS: I have been thinking a lot about this lately. Everywhere I go service is utterly horrible, even with companies once known for service. 1) people don't listen. No matter how clearly you state an order, explain your need, people don't listen. I'm not just talking about fast-food---it's everywhere. I spent hours with a saleswoman for a new home we were building. I stated again and again, "We have plenty of money for a down payment, but my monthly payment CANNOT be more than $X". Again and again she would mindlessly print out a...