There is a strong possibility that in the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligences (AIs), perhaps in the form of robots, will become capable of sentient thought. Whatever form it takes, this dawning of machine consciousness is likely to have a substantial impact on human society.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and physicist Stephen Hawking have in recent months warned of the dangers of intelligent robots becoming too powerful for humans to control. The ethical conundrum of intelligent machines and how they relate to humans has long been a theme of science fiction, and has been vividly portrayed in films such as 1982's Blade Runner and this year's Ex Machina.


Academic and fictional analyses of AIs tend to focus on human–robot interactions, asking questions such as: would robots make our lives easier? Would they be dangerous? And could they ever pose a threat to humankind?

The advancements seen within the field of 3D bioprinting are simply staggering. With numerous companies spending millions of dollars on advancing such technologies, we are in the early stages of what may be one of the most important medical revolutions of our time. With 3D printed human organs promising to one day eliminate the lengthy organ transplant waiting lists, perhaps saving hundreds of thousands of lives each year, these advances can not come soon enough.

Back in November we covered a story about a Skolkovo, Russia-based company called 3D Bioprinting Solutions. At the time, the company, which is headed up by Vladimir Mironov, made headlines,promising to have a 3D printed thyroid gland of a mouse by March of this year.

The small mobile robot is equipped with tactile sensors to lead the way. A sleeve on the user's arm then interpret signals sent back from the robot. These vibrations can reveal the size, shape or stiffness of an obstacle. Engineers said they could also benefit blind people as well as firefighters.For example, they could help firefighters move through burning buildings. Researchers have also developed a so-called 'tactile language' for robots. They now plan to explore how reins and haptic signals could help older people in their homes.

Robots are already being blamed for taking people's jobs, and now the machines are gunning for guide dogs.

Researchers have developed a 'robot on reins' that can help people navigate using tactile sensors and vibrations. 

The proof-of-concept currently resembles a vacuum cleaner or lawnmower but future versions could be smaller and more lightweight for use in the home. 

Engineers said they could also benefit firefighters, for example, by helping them moving through smoke-filled buildings to find people more easily.

The small mobile robots are equipped with sensors that lead the way, with the user following up to 3ft (one metre) behind holding a rein.

A special sleeve covering the user's arm would then be fitted with electronic micro-vibrators. 

This sleeve would turn the signals sent back by the robot into detailed data that the blind person, firefighter or other user would have been trained to interpret. 

These vibrations could also provide data about the size, shape and even the stiffness of any object it finds.

As nanotechnology makes possible a world of machines too tiny to see, researchers are finding ways to combine living organisms with nonliving machinery to solve a variety of problems.

Like other first-generation bio-robots, the new nanobot engineered at the University of Illinois at Chicago is a far cry from Robocop. It's a robotic germ.

UIC researchers created an electromechanical device -- a humidity sensor -- on a bacterial spore. They call it NERD, for Nano-Electro-Robotic Device. The report is online at Scientific Reports, a Nature open access journal.

"We've taken a spore from a bacteria, and put graphene quantum dots on its surface -- and then attached two electrodes on either side of the spore," said Vikas Berry, UIC associate professor of chemical engineering and principal investigator on the study.

"Then we change the humidity around the spore," he said.

When the humidity drops, the spore shrinks as water is pushed out. As it shrinks, the quantum dots come closer together, increasing their conductivity, as measured by the electrodes.

"We get a very clean response -- a very sharp change the moment we change humidity," Berry said. The response was 10 times faster, he said, than a sensor made with the most advanced human-made water-absorbing polymers.

It was just last week that we reported on a company called Carbon3D, who had just unveiled a “breakthrough” 3D printing process referred to as Continuous Liquid Interface Production technology (CLIP). Quickly news of this new 3D printing process, which claims to be able to print objects 25-100 times faster than traditional 3D printers, hit the mainstream media. The technology proves that perhaps widespread use of 3D printing could be a lot closer than we think. If objects can be printed in minutes rather than in hours, doesn’t the technology become a lot more attractive for just about everyone?  It will really depend on the price of the printers, which the company has not given any clues to as of yet.

Now, less than a week later, 3DPrint.com has been informed by a company called Gizmo 3D, that they too are working on a super fast SLA style 3D printer, which may actually one-up the Carbon3D system, as far as speed and print quality go.

While the Gizmo 3D printer uses Direct Light Processing (DLP) technology in order to create solid objects out of liquid resin, their method is not the same as that used in other DLP 3D printers on the market today, nor is it the same as the method that Carbon3D has unveiled, although similar.

It's another day of abuse for this poor robot named Atrias. If not being kicked around, Atrias spends hours being pummeled by balls. But, remarkably, through the abuse, the robot stays on its feet.

Unlike most bipedal robots which are designed to move like humans, engineers from the Dynamic Robotics Laboratory at Oregon State University modeled Atrias on a bird, creating what is basically a robotic ostrich that conserves energy while maximizing agility and balance.

As time goes by and technology improves, we are constantly seeing prices for previously groundbreaking technology fall to levels which allow for the adoption of this technology by the masses. 3D printing is one of these technologies, in that now, virtually anyone in the developed world can afford a desktop 3D printer. At the same time though, other technologies are following in this same path. For example smartphones, tablets and mini computers can now perform tasks that a machine 20 years ago, at 100 times the price, couldn’t even have come close to achieving.

For one company out of Japan, called exiii, this has allowed them to create a myoelectric hand which not only is exponentially more functional than prosthetic hands from a decade ago, but also is available at just a fraction of the price.

Remember Baxter, the robotic arm with a smiling face that you can teach to do simple, repeatable tasks? Well he has a little brother!

Rethink Robotics’ Sawyer is a smaller, lighter Baxter with a higher-precision hand. While Baxter was designed to, say, place items in a box over and over again, Sawyer can be used for “tasks that require significant agility and flexibility.” Interestingly the two robots can work together with Sawyer placing a screw into a hole and Baxter boxing the whole thing up, for example.

You'll see a lot more instances of robotic arms in the news, but it doesn't mean high-tech prostheses for the lower limbs don't exist. The Cyberlegs project, for instance, is developing robotic legs that can help amputees move and walk more naturally. Each system is comprised of smart shoes equipped with pressure sensors and inertial measurement units, the limb itself, as well as a component and algorithm that can decode how the user intends to move. It can, for instance, tell if the user wants to start walking, to get up or to sit down -- based on the amputee's habits -- providing the proper support for each action. Users that need even more help can also be fitted with an accompanying pelvic brace that can assist them in moving their hips.

Cyberlegs is a joint project by a number of European institutions: the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa, Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi Onlus in Florence, as well the Catholic University of Louvain and the Free University of Brussels in Belgium. Researchers from these schools have been working on the project since 2012 using $2.7 million in funds from the European Commission, but the Italian scientists have only just presented their work to the public this Monday.