The field of artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly. We have seen dramatic breakthroughs in speech recognition, image recognition, language tasks, autonomous robotics, and game playing in recent years. And we are likely to see much more as researchers and scientists make even more progress. 

Since their invention, robots have been helping humans in manufacturing and other industries be more efficient and have safer processes. Over the past several years, modern technology has offered immersive platforms using augmented reality (AR) for media and gaming. But the two are now merging where the field of augmented reality is beginning to change the face of robotics.

When it comes to robots, bigger may not be better. Someday soon, tiny robotic “bugs” might help people with medical issues, search for survivors in a collapsed building, or diagnose a problem in your factory. Here is what you need to know about these tiny robots and how they could be poised to revolutionize the industry.

If you’ve ever watched a school of fish move through the water, you know that it’s a marvel of nature. Scientists have noticed this as well and set up experiments using something called synthetic microswimmers. What they discovered was that material can be directed through a fluid fairly rapidly when the swimmers work together. This has some interesting implications for healthcare and a variety of other applications.

The growing interest in a new field known as soft robotics comes from the potential of these systems to address problems that can’t be solved by robots built from rigid materials. Many innovative solutions have been developed over the past several years to design soft systems and components. Here is some insight into the growing field of soft robotics and how these solutions can impact humans.

Barcodes have been a standard in most industries for decades. But other technologies have challenged the efficiency and usefulness of barcodes. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology is the main challenger. While both solutions are well suited for certain applications, there are many advantages of RFID over barcodes that are worth considering.

When voice technology was first introduced with the launch of Siri more than a decade ago, few people could have anticipated how this novel feature would become such a driver for innovation. Today, more than a quarter of U.S. adults own a smart speaker (Amazon Echo, Google Home, etc.), and eMarketer predicts that roughly 92 percent of smartphone users will be using voice assistants within the next year.

Technology has become a driving factor of nearly every sector in the modern world. And warehouses are no different. The need to mass produce the handling of materials has necessitated the incorporation of technology in warehouse operations. 

While the term “social distancing” is the common parlance we all use and hear every day during the pandemic, the CDC also uses “physical distancing” with the same definition – “keeping a safe space – currently defined as at least 6 feet – between individuals from different households.” Given our focus is always on the workplace, we’ve been using “physical distancing” and will continue to do so. But how do you enforce it at the workplace? If there has been one thing that the recent spikes and the difficulty of the last seven months have proved is that the discipline required to eliminate workplace disruptions has been difficult to maintain on a voluntary basis.

Just as the holiday season got underway just over a month ago, NASA’s InSight Mars Lander became the latest successful attempt by we earthlings to explore our universe a bit more. The scenes of the landing and the operation of the Lander itself were inspiring. And the mission – dedicated to investigating the deep interior of Mars – is ambitious, even though just getting there may have seemed ambitious enough. But have you ever thought about one of the unsung hero details of this operation? There are actual LABELS on Mars now!