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Submission + - Robot helps 94-year-old Italian grandmother live independently at home (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: EU invests in new technology to support silver generation
At 94, Grandma Lea could not live alone anymore, but she wanted to stay at home. She still does thanks to the EU-funded GiraffPlus system, which uses a combination of wearable devices, sensors throughout the home and a mobile robot to assist older people in their homes, and to connect them to family, friends and healthcare professionals who need to keep an eye on the person’s health and activities. The system should be in commercial production by the end of 2015. The EU market for robots and devices assisting elderly people is estimated to reach €13 billion by 2016.

Submission + - What is 'computational thinking'? Your future job may depend on it (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Behavioural economist Colin Lewis explains why skills such as the ability to recognize patterns, to filter out unnecessary information, or to break down a task into minute details so that we can clearly explain a process to another person or to a computer, will be critical to the next generation of workers.

Submission + - Robotics MOOC prototype: CloudSim-Ed (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: This project intends to provide students with a means to learn robotics using open source software. For schools with limited robotics laboratory space and equipment, the simulated worlds and environments give students a chance to experiment with minimal setup time and effort. This will hopefully reduce the time used in software troubleshooting when dealing with actual robot hardware.

Submission + - How do you design a robot that knows right from wrong? (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: In order to better understand the technical and social challenges of designing robots today, this pilot study shows how a robot can learn from interacting with humans to determine the most appropriate way to act. AJung Moon, the author, writes "Our pilot survey data indicates that, as is the case for humans, ethical behavior is not simply a set of inflexible rules, but is highly dependent on the context of a situation and on communication and interaction with other actors. The emphasis respondents placed on engaging in dialogue suggests that the key to developing robots with ethical decision-making capabilities may lie not in the creation of a set of principles guiding robots to make predetermined decisions, but in the development of robots that can better communicate and negotiate with the people they encounter to reach mutually agreeable outcomes."

Submission + - Share your opinion on autonomous cars: Reader poll (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Putting autonomous cars on the road requires a lot work, not only in getting the technology ready, but also in figuring out how we want the technology to shape the way we live. Share your opinion and help shape the future of autonomous cars by taking this reader poll.

Submission + - Minesweepers robotic competition aims for a landmine-free world (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Dr. Alaa Khamis writes: "Detection and removal of antipersonnel landmines is, at present, a serious problem of political, economical, environmental and humanitarian dimensions in many countries across the world. It is estimated that there are 110 million landmines in the ground right now; one for every 52 inhabitants on the planet. These mines kill or maim more than 5,000 people annually. If demining efforts remain about the same as they are now, and no new mines are laid, it will still take 1100 years to get rid of all the world’s active land mines because current conventional methods of removal are very slow, inefficient, dangerous and costly. Robotic systems can provide efficient, reliable, adaptive and cost effective solutions for the problem of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination."

Submission + - Robot Launch global start-up competition announces top 30 semi-finalists (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Want to find out who the semifinalists are in the first global startup competition for robotics? With 76 applications from 19 different countries, and entries covering industrial, service and consumer robotics, it’s clear that robotics is entering a period of strong growth. The judges did not have an easy job, but here are the TOP 30 ...

Submission + - Fukushima photo essay: A drone's eye view (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Stunning photos and incredible interactive aerial maps of the devastation, cleanup and reconstruction effort in the region around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. By Adam Klaptocz of Drone Adventures in collaboration with Taichi Furuhashi, researcher at the Center for Spatial Information Science at the University of Tokyo.

Submission + - € 7M EuRoC robotics competition opens call to ignite manufacturing (robohub.org)

Submitted by Sabine Hauert
Sabine Hauert writes: The call for Europe’s newest robotics competition opened yesterday when a consortium of leading robotics and research institutions from across the EU announced the launch of the European Robotics Challenge (EuRoC). The competition will consist of a series of three industry-relevant challenges created to help keep Europe’s manufacturing industry globally competitive and at the leading edge of innovation. € 7M in grants, funded through the European Commission, will be awarded throughout the duration of the four-year program.

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