Free Republic

China has shown off a new military drone that carries two grenade launchers. The weapon appeared during a recent combat exercise in southern China, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The rotary-wing aircraft is also capable of firing guided munitions and conducting various missions, including tactical reconnaissance and midair interceptions, it is reported.

The future of our nation is at risk if we don't take action to reverse the damage that has been done to marriage, family, and parenting in 21st-century America. Perhaps the most important document to come out of the U.S. Senate this year was released last month, and while a report on President Donald Trump’s tax returns, another COVID-19 relief package, or infrastructure legislation likely would have gotten major media attention, this important document flew under the radar. The report, titled “The Demise of the Happy Two-Parent Home” and produced by the Social Capital Project of the Joint Economic Committee...

“Pretty,” was the word an Alabama senior used to describe the lifelike robotic companion pet she received from a new pilot project administered by the Alabama Department of Senior Services. It was the first word she had said in a long time, according to department Commissioner Jean Brown. The Alabama agency, along with several other state agencies managing programs for seniors in New York, Florida and Pennsylvania, have partnered with robotic pet manufacturer Ageless Innovation to combat loneliness and provide comfort and companionship for isolated seniors. With insight into the growing epidemic of loneliness and need for interactive play amongst...

Restaurants Are Toast - Not Satire This is totally devastating for all of the United States. Speaker Pelosi made an error when she voted down the fourth traunch of the Care Act because she thought that not all small businesses had bank relationships. The fact is that the only small business that do not have a relationship with a bank are drug dealers.Restocking their freezers and rent have to be included in the Care ActCall your congress person and you senators today and tomorrowWe need to work together with the Dems and rid this country of hate and haters.

Unmanned robots are patrolling the streets of Tunisia’s capital as part of the government’s measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The unmanned ground vehicles are called P-Guard and locally developed by Enova Robotics. They are being used by the Ministry of Interior to enforce its lockdown of Tunis. The city has been on lockdown since March 22. arabnews ✔ @arabnews Replying to @arabnews #WATCH: Man in Tunis confronted by unmanned robot patrolling the streets during #Coronavirus lockdown... Gets told to "hurry up" when he says he is "just buying cigarettes" #Tunisia #COVID19 More on the city's unmanned vehicles here:...

The Bots actually respond like a Live Adversary - For the gun enthusiasts that want more out of just shooting at paper targets or moving targets. How about moving robot targets that moves autonomously? Check out Robotic Human-Type Targets from Australia’s Marathon Targets, they’re basically dummy mannequins on wheels with a computer embedded. The bots can be programmed to various scenario whether the bots is hit or not. The idea is to deploy human-looking dummies that can “look, move, and behave like people,” with a degree of networked autonomy. For example, when one bot goes down in a hail of...

On conference stages and at campaign rallies, tech executives and politicians warn of a looming automation crisis — one where workers are gradually, then all at once, replaced by intelligent machines. But their warnings mask the fact that an automation crisis has already arrived. The robots are here, they’re working in management, and they’re grinding workers into the ground. The robots are watching over hotel housekeepers, telling them which room to clean and tracking how quickly they do it. They’re managing software developers, monitoring their clicks and scrolls and docking their pay if they work too slowly. They’re listening to...

This winter semester, more UW-Madison students are bundled up inside, counting on app-based delivery robots to feed their appetites. The maker Starship launched a fleet of thirty self-navigating campus food carriers in November. Since then, Peter Testory, the university’s director of dining, said orders have jumped more than 700 percent. Testory said there’s also a correlation between bad winter weather and service use. When the order comes in with a “ding,” dining staff prepare the food at a campus kitchen. Runners or, oftentimes, kitchen managers take the food to the delivery bots parked outside. Once runners close the lids, the...

Today, the RealCare Baby 3 infant simulator is a fantastically sophisticated, computer-programmed doll that costs up to $1,000 to replace if you lose it. (I know because I had to sign a waiver; Anna’s school has six of them, provided through a grant from a local education foundation.) The student wears a corresponding wristband that logs his or her responses to the baby through a radio frequency identification tag. Then she — and most of the caregivers are female — has to determine what the baby needs, based on distinctly different cries. “Just like a real baby, you eventually kind of can tell — that’s a...

Researchers in the US have created the first living machines by assembling cells from African clawed frogs into tiny robots that move around under their own steam. One of the most successful creations has two stumpy legs that propel it along on its “chest”. Another has a hole in the middle that researchers turned into a pouch so it could shimmy around with miniature payloads. Roboticists tend to favour metal and plastic for their strength and durability, but Levin and his colleagues see benefits in making robots from biological tissues. When damaged, living robots can heal their wounds, and once...

Video footage from the Massachusetts State Police shows a Boston Dynamics robot dog working for the unit's bomb squad. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) immediately began firing shots, stating that the use of a general purpose robot in a police force setting is potentially dangerous. As per usual, the internet went crazy with hot takes and memes on the latest robo-cop, which the police force leased for 90 days

Honeywell is jumping into robotics — with Pittsburgh as its hub. The Fortune 100 company is creating Honeywell Robotics, an advanced technology center tasked with developing artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, and advanced robotics for use mainly in warehouses. Honeywell Robotics will be based at 3 Crossings in the Strip District. The company leased 25,000 square feet of space formerly occupied by Robert Bosch in the development last spring, but did not say why. In an announcement Thursday, Honeywell said the new robotics center will help to shape the warehouses and distribution centers of the future, with automation plugging...

MIT has developed a new way to speed up the planning involved in a robot grasping an object, making it “significantly” faster — reducing the total time from as much as 10 or more minutes to less than a second. That’s many orders of magnitude better, bringing it closer to the realm of human reaction and response time. This could have big practical benefits to settings where robotics are already in use, including industrial environments. The research team’s method involves having the robot push the object against a surface that doesn’t move, which allows it to shortcut a bunch of...

A healthy foods concept has selected Houston as its next spot to bring its salad-making robot — aptly named Sally. The Salad Station, a Louisiana-based restaurant group, has partnered with California-based Chowbotics to bring salad-making vending machines to Houstonians. Chowbotics invented Sally, which serves customizable, made-to-order salads, snacks, breakfast bowls, and grain bowls. Scott Henderson, founder and president of The Salad Station, tells InnovationMap that the discussion with Chowbotics about being the company's operational manager started in 2018. "In seven states, from Texas to Florida, The Salad Station does operations for Sally the robot," says Henderson. "We both have a...

As NASA makes a big push to land humans on the moon's surface by 2024, the European Space Agency (ESA) wants to learn more about the lunar caves that lie beneath. "Exploring and mapping these tubes could provide new information about the moon's geology, but they could also be an interesting option as long-term shelter for future human visitors to the moon," Franceso Sauro, director of ESA's Pangaea planetary geology astronaut training, said in a statement. "They would shield astronauts from cosmic radiation and micrometeorites and possibly provide access to icy water and other resources trapped underground." The missions have...

The idea behind fast food is speed and efficiency. When it comes to fast-food chains, McDonald’s is always on the cutting edge of getting people fed quickly—too quickly, some say. In the rush to gobble down food, much of the joy of eating is lost. Fast food is a soulless commodity that neglects the spiritual appreciation of flavor and taste. It can turn what should be a dining place into a biological fueling station. The bad news is that it has just gotten worse. Just when you think the fast-food giant has reached a peak of efficiency, it comes out...

A French nightclub has caused a stir after it exhibited pole-dancing robots donning high heels. The gyrating robots had CCTV cameras for heads and were interspersed among their human counterparts at the Strip Club Cafe (SC-Club) in Nantes on Friday night. The androids moved their hips in time to the blasting music while on elevated platforms, in front of a male-dominated audience.

Robotics engineers at MIT have built a threadlike robot worm that can be magnetically steered to deftly navigate the extremely narrow and winding arterial pathways of the human brain. One day it could be used to quickly clear blockages and clots that contribute to strokes and aneurysms, while at the same time making the current state of robotic evolution even more unsettling.

Have you ever noticed the popularity of white robots? You see them in films like Will Smith's "I, Robot" and Eve from "Wall-E." Real-life examples include Honda's Asimo, UBTECH's Walker, Boston Dynamics' Atlas, and even NASA's Valkyrie robot. All made of shiny white material. And some real-life humanoid robots are modeled after white celebrities, such as Audrey Hepburn and Scarlett Johansson. The reason for these shades of technological white may be racism, according to new research. "Robots And Racism," a study conducted by the Human Interface Technology Laboratory in New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ) and published by the country's University...

In addition to letting players steal first base, the Atlantic League — which serves as a testing ground for Major League Baseball — has employed a number of different changes this season which could eventually be adopted by MLB. One of them? Robotic umpires calling balls and strikes. In every stadium of the eight-team Atlantic League, there is now a TrackMan device above home plate which uses 3-D Doppler radar to register balls and strikes. Once the radar decides whether a pitch is in or out of the strike zone, the device relays its decision via wifi to an iPhone...