Bots in Society

Monogram Orthopedics, a startup in joint replacement surgery, announced it has crossed a five thousand Series B investor milestone on crowdfunding platform StartEngine. Aiming to personalize the $19.6B joint replacement market through artificial intelligence, robotics, and 3D printing, More than 1 million knee replacement surgeries are done a year in the United States alone, a figure that is expected to grow to 3.5 million by 2030.

The City of Huntington Park will extend its existing contract with Knightscope for their robot cop to continue patrolling a popular park in Los Angeles County. By a unanimous 5 to 0 vote, the City Council of Huntington Park approved the renewal of the Knightscope Autonomous Security Robot contract for an additional two-year term. 

Guidance Automation announced the findings of its latest research regarding the growth of the intralogistics automation sector. Undertaken by SAPIO Research during April 2021, the research explores the importance of intralogistics automation including the role of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) within companies that have a warehouse, fulfilment, production or distribution, and were in operation during the pandemic.

In a recent research paper IDG aims to help organizations interested in exploring an Automation for Good agenda to understand what is possible and how to get started. For organizations looking to maximize the impact needs to pursue automation with a specific positive intention the authors propose an ‘automation for good manifesto’.

Artificial intelligence tools and deep learning models are a powerful tool in cancer treatment. They can be used to analyze digital images of tumor biopsy samples, helping physicians quickly classify the type of cancer, predict prognosis and guide a course of treatment for the patient. However, unless these algorithms are properly calibrated, they can sometimes make inaccurate or biased predictions.

Exoskeletons – wearable devices used by workers on assembly lines or in warehouses to alleviate stress on their lower backs – may compete with valuable resources in the brain while people work, canceling out the physical benefits of wearing them, a new study suggests.

Morgan Medical Center (MMC) has bought two LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robots by Xenex. The robots quickly destroy microscopic pathogens in high-traffic areas, including the emergency department, patient rooms, operating rooms and public restrooms.

Surpassing the biological limitations of the brain and using one’s mind to interact with and control external electronic devices may sound like the distant cyborg future, but it could come sooner than we think. Researchers warn of the potential social, ethical, and legal consequences of technologies interacting heavily with human brains. 

Unmanned Valley and KPN have jointly created an environment for developing new drone applications in the Netherlands. The collaboration between the field lab for sensor-based technologies – located just north of The Hague in the Netherlands – and the leading provider of telecommunications and IT services in the Netherlands, allows companies to easily test innovations and demonstrate applications that use the commercially available KPN networks.

A new model that applies artificial intelligence to carbohydrates improves the understanding of the infection process and could help predict which viruses are likely to spread from animals to humans. This is reported in a recent study led by researchers at the University of Gothenburg.