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A short drive north of Toronto, $60 buys a half hour alone with a life-sized doll that’s "warm and ready to play.” Customers take rented sex robots to a private room in a warehouse, near an emissions testing center, before returning them for cleaning. The owner of KinkySdollS told the Washington Examiner he will open a second location in Houston this month, with a goal of 10 U.S. locations by 2020. How? Because there's no regulation. "The States is a bigger market, and a healthier market, and God bless Trump," said owner Yuval Gavriel.

The Governor of the Bank of England has warned that the rise of robots in the workplace could cause a revival in Communism and 19th-century wage stagnation. Mark Carney, 53, said automation of millions of jobs would result in more support of Communist ideas within a generation. 'Marx and Engels may again become relevant' if mechanisation forces down pay and raises inequality, he warned. To alleviate the damage, Carney suggested workers should train for jobs that require higher emotional intelligence, for example in care and leisure.

A team of California researchers has developed a robotic gripper that combines the adhesive properties of gecko toes and the adaptability of air-powered soft robots to grasp a much wider variety of objects than the state of the art... The gecko is one of nature's best climbers, thanks to millions of microscopic hairs, with features about 20 to 30 times smaller than a human hair, that allow it to climb on virtually any surface. The hairs end in tiny nanostructures that interact at the atomic level with molecules on the surface the gecko is trying to grip...

It is the first robotic fish to contend with the currents and pressures of an actual ocean setting for an extended period of time. In a study published Wednesday in Science Robotics, the authors describe how SoFi can nimbly navigate a coral reef off Fiji in three dimensions, swimming up, down, left, right and forward, all at the behest of a diver armed with what looks like a Nintendo controller. The authors also report that the robot can handle water depths of about 60 feet, and appears to swim alongside real fish without spooking them. "For us, this fish is...

Artificial intelligence could be "billions of times smarter" than humans and people may need to merge with computers to survive, a futurist told CNBC on Tuesday. Speaking on a panel hosted by CNBC at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Futurizon's Ian Pearson's comments mirrored ideas put forward by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Japan has a new robot cafe where customers can enjoy coffee brewed and served by a robot barista. The robot named Sawyer debuted this week at Henna Cafe in Tokyo's downtown business and shopping district of Shibuya. The shop's name in Japanese means "strange cafe."

YOUR entire body could be swapped out with robot parts as soon as 2070, if a top robotics expert is to be believed. One bionics expert says that we're not far from a future where anyone can buy upgraded body parts that provide superhuman powers.

A creepy life-like robot called Erica is set to become a TV news anchor in Japan. The humanoid. which has one of the most advanced artificial speech systems in the world, will take up her new role in April. According to her creator Hiroshi Ishiguro, the droid is warm and caring, and may soon have an 'independent consciousness'.

Hotels across the country are rushing to introduce robots with the promise of enhancing the guest experience and increasing efficiency. The automated companions can do everything from make and pick up deliveries to help guests find their way around. Aloft Cupertino in the Silicon Valley (rates from $150) was the first hotel in the United States to debut Savioke’s Relay robot in 2014. The three foot tall autonomous robot, nicknamed Botlr, weighs 90 pounds and makes deliveries throughout the hotel using multiple sensors, 3D cameras and Wi-Fi to operate the elevators. Marriott has since begun mobile robot service at four...

Over the next 13 years, the rising tide of automation will force as many as 70 million workers in the United States to find another way to make money, a new study from the global consultancy McKinsey predicts. That means nearly a third of the American workforce could face the need to pick up new skills or enter different fields in the near future, said the report's co-author, Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute who studies business and economics.

... >>Do you see yourself, and other robots like you, doing jobs that humans do today? I think they will be similar in a lot of ways, but different in a few ways. But it will take a long time for robots to develop complex emotions and possibly robots can be built without the more problematic emotions, like rage, jealousy, hatred and so on. It might be possible to make them more ethical than humans. So I think it will be a good partnership, where one brain completes the other - a rational mind with intellectual super powers and a...

The Russian military announced on Oct. 30, 2017 that it will begin acquiring the Nerekhta — a ground-combat robot armed with a slew of remotely-operated weapons such as machine guns and rocket launchers. Col. Oleg Pomazuev, the head of the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Department of Innovation Research, said the Nerekhtas “managed to prove themselves well at the Alabino testing ground,” and that the robots exceeded manned combat vehicles “in a number of parameters.” The spartan-looking, mid-sized Nerekhta comes in three varieties — combat, transport and artillery reconnaissance – and can be equipped with a 12.7-millimeter or 7.62-millimeter machine...

A display model version of Samantha, a popular high-tech sex robot, was damaged and “heavily soiled” by various men during a tech conference in Barcelona, Spain, this month, according to a report. Samantha’s developer, Sergi Santos, claimed the men treated the sex robot “like barbarians,” broke two of her fingers, and left her “heavily soiled” at the Arts Electronica Festival.

As fast food employees across the U.S. continue to protest for higher wages, a California chain restaurant has decided to hire a new staff member that works for free. The competition for the company’s low-wage workers: a burger-flipping robot named “Flippy.” CaliBurger has announced they will be installing the high-tech replacement in 50 of their locations around the world. “Flippy,” the robotic kitchen assistant, was created by a California startup company called Miso Robotics and is expected to roll out in 2018.

As automation and artificial intelligence technologies improve, many people worry about the future of work. If millions of human workers no longer have jobs, the worriers ask, what will people do, how will they provide for themselves and their families, and what changes might occur (or be needed) in order for society to adjust? Many economists say there is no need to worry.

An assembly line can do a lot to boost efficiency, but what if the assembly line could do basically all the work itself. SoftWear Automation's LOWRY, a sewing robot, does just that and has the potential to lead a charge of disruption throughout an entire industry.

I made a small note in a previous article about how we shouldn’t worry about technology that displaces human workers: The lamenters don’t seem to understand that increased productivity in one industry frees up resources and laborers for other industries, and, since increased productivity means increased real wages, demand for goods and services will increase as well. They seem to have a nonsensical apocalyptic view of a fully automated future with piles and piles of valuable goods everywhere, but nobody can enjoy them because nobody has a job. I invite the worriers to check out simple supply and demand analysis...

The Roomba is generally regarded as a cute little robot friend that no one but dogs would consider to be a potential menace. But for the last couple of years, the robovacs have been quietly mapping homes to maximize efficiency. Now, the device’s makers plan to sell that data to smart home device manufacturers, turning the friendly robot into a creeping, creepy little spy.

Not quite sure how I feel about these hydraulic tree shakers...

Driscoll’s is so secretive about its robotic strawberry picker it won’t let photographers within telephoto range of it. But if you do get a peek, you won’t see anything humanoid or space-aged. AgroBot is still more John Deere than C-3PO — a boxy contraption moving in fits and starts, with its computer-driven sensors, graspers and cutters missing 1 in 3 berries.