Slack, the popular work chat app, has launched one of the features that users have been clamoring for over its entire lifetime: threaded messages.

On Wednesday, the company began the process of rolling out the update to all of its users, which will allow them to keep conversations about a particular topic corralled into a single thread. The feature is designed to keep conversations on a particular topic out of the main flow of a chat channel, the company said in a blog post.

Starting a thread just requires users to hover over a message, click the “Start a Thread” button, and type their response. Replies will be grouped into a sidebar thread, and a small link will appear below the original message showing who has replied to a thread and how many replies it has garnered.

Users have been requesting threaded replies for years as a way to help deal with crowded chat channels where multiple conversations are going on at once. Slack allows users in a channel to talk with one another in a single, uninterrupted flow, which means it can be difficult when folks are discussing two or more different topics. This feature should help with that, along with assisting in reducing clutter from ancillary discussions.

Launching threaded replies will also help Slack compete with other messaging services like Microsoft Teams, which has pushed its support for threading replies as a key feature. Microsoft is slated to make Teams generally available next month, and a recent survey of IT professionals showed them optimistic about the tech giant’s chances of competing with Slack.

|  Continue to full article here |  January 18, 2017  |

Smart sensors offer advanced functions that make setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting machinery and equipment much more efficient writes  Kevin Zomchek of Rockwell Automation for Machine Design

Sensors are essential in capturing basic diagnostics from industrial machines and equipment. As the people maintaining the machines are nearing retirement, a new, younger workforce is emerging that is comfortable with technology and the data that comes with it. As a result, manufacturers need to find ways to transfer that domain knowledge from the retiring generation into today’s smart machines to aid the upcoming generation of maintenance engineers. It will be key to manufacturer success to capture contextual data to provide more predictive diagnostics and leverage data across the manufacturing enterprise. A new wave of smart sensing technology is fulfilling this need–bringing deep insight into the health of industrial machines.

Sensors enabled with IO-Link technology can communicate more data, allowing machines to operate more effectively. In fact, standard sensors are limited to indicating the presence and/or absence of an object, while smart sensors can provide up to 32 bytes of cyclical data including diagnostics not only for the sensor but about the application environment. Some examples are sensor status, dirty lens indication (in the case of photoelectric sensors), and sensor internal temperature (for proximity sensors). Plus, these smart sensors offer other advanced functions that make setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting much more efficient, including the storage of multiple machine profiles to simplify parameter adjustments during line/shift changes as well as automatic device replacement, which feeds previous sensor configurations directly to new sensors as they are replaced.

| Continue to the full article & diagrams here  |  January 17, 2017  |

Laser system maker Trumpf has developed a femtosecond laser to weld glass light guides used in its own laser machines.

Trumpf is currently building the laser welding system to mass produce glass protective caps for the laser light cables in its production plant in Schramberg, Germany. The caps would traditionally be glued to the cables. Using a femtosecond laser to weld the components reduces costs and increases the durability of the seam.

Elke Kaiser, applications engineer at Trumpf, commented: ‘The laser system also serves as a pilot system to demonstrate to potential users that new, innovative laser methods are reliable and ready for deployment in glass processing and offer immense advantages.’

The new laser welding methods also mean that optical beam paths are no longer contaminated with glue, and there is no evaporation and no long-term embrittlement of adhesives.

Glass is hard and brittle, has lower thermal conductivity than metal, and tends to crack when heated unevenly due to the internal tension developed. Femtosecond laser systems can prevent such cracking. ‘The laser system must permit variable programming of pauses and pulses,’ explained Kaiser.

Glass is permeable to light with wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet to near infrared. Absorption takes place only when the energy densities are very high, so that processing within the glass is facilitated.

The highest performance density lies deep in the lower glass at the focal point. The energy from several thousand laser beam pulses causes a melt pool to be created and pushed upwards in just a few milliseconds. Skillful thermal management and an optimal ratio of pulses and pauses prevent the glass from cracking.

The joint strength of the glass parts depends primarily on the level of pulse energy. The pulse energy for 1,030nm infrared light needs to be 9µJ.

|  A LaserSystems europe release  |  January 18, 2017  |

MRRSE has announced the addition of the “Building Information Modelling Market - Australia, New Zealand and India Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024” report to their offering.

Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/18/2017 -- The vast rise in infrastructure development activities across India, Australia, and New Zealand in the past few years has been complemented with an increased focus on the usage of digital tools for the proper estimation of cost and time required for project completion. As the overall focus on cost and time values continues to rise in the highly competitive construction industry, traditional 3D visualization tools such as AutoCAD, 3DMax, and CATIA are being increasingly replaced by building information modelling (BIM) solutions.

Building information modelling (BIM) is a 3D visual presentation of a technical drawing that includes the plan, elevation, and section of a building. It is a kind of digital fabrication system in which the actual model of the building is digitally constructed with accurate values. Apart from 3D visualization, BIM also covers 4D and 5D, which comprise the time and cost plans of a construction project.

Request a Sample Copy of the Report @ http://www.mrrse.com/sample/2376

According to Transparency Market Research, the Australia, New Zealand, and India building information modelling (BIM) market was worth US$214.0 mn in 2015 and is expected to reach US$1,335.3 mn by 2024, expanding at a remarkable CAGR of 22.3% from 2016 to 2024.

Architects Continue to Remain Dominant Consumers of BIM Solutions

Architects, contractors and engineers are some of the prominent end users of BIM solution in India, New Zealand, and Australia. Across all three, the segment of architects is the key consumer of these solutions, accounting for over 40% of these markets in 2015. Over the forecast period as well, the segment is projected to continue to have a strong influence on the overall development of the BIM market and exhibit growth at a remarkable pace across these countries.

However, the usage of BIM solutions across the contractor segment is expected to exhibit growth at a faster pace than the architects segment across these countries over the forecast period. In India, the segment is expected to expand at a 26.6% CAGR, in Australia it will exhibit a 25% CAGR and in New Zealand, it will exhibit a slightly lesser 21% CAGR as compared to the architect sector.

Inquiry on this report @ http://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/2376

Thanks to Vast Rise in Infrastructure Development Activities, India to Account for Bulk of Sales

In terms of revenue, India is presently the leading market building information modeling solutions, accounting for nearly 43% share in the overall revenue of the Australia, New Zealand, and India building information modelling (BIM) market in 2015. Moreover, the country is expected to remain the leading consumer of building information modeling solutions throughout the forecast period. India's building information modeling market is primarily driven by the rapid rate of development of the healthcare infrastructure of the country.

The building information modeling market in Australia is also expected to exhibit adequate growth over the forecast period. Rising use in the construction of bridges, roads and highways is key to the high demand for building information modeling solutions in the country. The Australia building information modelling market will also be driven due to high demand across the rail, transit, and aviation sectors in the next few years.

Read Complete Report with TOC @ http://www.mrrse.com/australia-new-zealand-india-building-information-modelling-market

The encouraging pace of infrastructure development activities across New Zealand is also expected to lead to favorable growth opportunities for the building information modeling market. Over the period between 2016 and 2024, the New Zealand building information modeling market is expected to exhibit a 20.3% CAGR.

Some of the most remarkable companies operating in the Australia, New Zealand, and India building information modelling market are Dassault Systèmes SA, GRAITEC, Nemetschek AG, AECOM Technology Corporation, Pentagon Solutions Ltd., Synchro Software Ltd., Autodesk Inc., Beck Technology Ltd., Bentley Systems, and Tekla Corporation.

About MRRSEMRRSE stands for Market Research Reports Search Engine, the largest online catalog of latest market research reports based on industries, companies, and countries. MRRSE sources thousands of industry reports, market statistics, and company profiles from trusted entities and makes them available at a click. Besides well-known private publishers, the reports featured on MRRSE typically come from national statistics agencies, investment agencies, leading media houses, trade unions, governments, and embassies.

| A ReleaseWire press release  |  January 18, 2017  |

Airbus is planning to test self-piloted personal aircraft by the end of the year as a way of reducing traffic on inner-city roads.

The announcement was made by the aerospace group's CEO, Tom Enders, on Monday at the DLD digital tech conference in Munich.

During his keynote speech, Enders said Airbus is investing in driverless technologies and artificial intelligence, which could lead to them developing a fleet of flying cars.

"One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground. Now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground," he said, adding that he believed the company would be testing flying single-person transport by the end of the year.

"We are in an experimentation phase. We take this development very seriously," he said. "If we ignore these developments, we will be pushed out of important segments of the business."

Enders also noted how the development could affect city planning and infrastructure, saying that flying means you don't need to "pour billions" into concrete bridges and roads.

The personal aircraft is being explored in Airbus' Project Vahana. The project grew out of the company's Urban Air Mobility initiative, dedicated to less-conventional vehicle concepts, like vehicles to transport individuals or helicopter-style vehicle that carry multiple riders.

The aim would be for people to book the personal aircraft using an app, similar to car-sharing schemes such as Uber.

Airbus has also been working on "vertical take-off and landing" (VTOL) technology that would allow vehicles to pick up passengers in busy urban areas, and has said it expects to be putting them into production by 2021.

"We seek to help enable truly vertical cities by opening up urban airways in a predictable and controlled manner," said the company in a blog post.

"We believe that full automation will allow us to achieve higher safety by minimising human error. Our aircraft will follow predetermined flight paths, with only minor deviations if obstacle avoidance is needed."

Airbus' announcement appears to support transport designer Paul Priestman's prediction last year that passenger-carrying drones would be the future.

"We've got these electric drones flying around everywhere," he said. "[Electric planes are] just a scaled up version really. I think that's going to get really interesting – it could be the beginning of personalised transportation."

"It's like going back to the idea of jetpacks, but with lots of little drones," he added.

Airbus has filed a number of unusual patents over the years. In 2014 the company applied for a patent on bicycle-style seats that would replace seat cushions with saddles, and in 2015 filed one for two-storey passenger seating that would make the most of unused cabin space by stacking travellers one on top of another.

Most recently, the company patented removable aeroplane cabins for faster boarding.

| Originally published on Dezeen  |  January 17, 2017  |

In Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, developers of industrial automation and machine-to-machine systems are increasingly working together as the industry starts to grow, a new report from Frost & Sullivan has found.

The analysts says that this collaboration will be crucial to the manufacturing value chain as the Industial Internet of Things (IIoT) inches towards efficient adoption.

Currently Singapore and Australia lead IIoT adoption, while other countries are only starting to deploy machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies.

Research from the analyst firm shows that the automotive vertical has the highest M2M software and services market revenues, coming in at 35%.

Direct sales will soon give way to distributors and value-added resellers as they ensure end-to-end service delivery. They will also contribute to a compound annual growth rate of 17.2% between 2015 and 2020.

"The spate of mergers and acquisitions over the past four to five years will continue in the manufacturing software and hardware sectors," says industrial automation and process control industry analyst Krishnan Ramanathan.

"The IIoT environment has many complexities as it involves connecting and securing millions of devices, and analysing the explosive amounts of data generated. Strategic acquisitions could simplify these challenges,” Ramanathan continues.

Frost & Sullivan states that there are growth opportunities in the IoT sphere, as automation and electronic systems suppliers start to realise the potential for independence this technology can bring, particularly in the automotive industry and emergency services.

The analyst firm says that benefits will appear in areas such as savings, resource optimisation and better transparency and control will boost IIoT adoption and facilitate universal standards. Interest is also expected from connectivity service providers.

"Data analytics, which is integral to M2M, will be a game changer in the industry to generate high stakeholder value through improved inventory management and asset monitoring,” Ramanathan concludes.

|  A ChannellLife release  |  January 18, 2017  |

Singapore Lift Company (SLC) has launched the first composite lift in the world, paving the way for the city-state to manufacture a revolutionary type of elevators...

Alister Bennett, Managing Director of Singapore Lift Company (SLC), showing the prototype lift to the media. (Photo: SLC)

Singapore Lift Company (SLC) has launched the first composite lift in the world, paving the way for the city-state to manufacture a revolutionary type of elevators in the future.

Made of lightweight and durable materials used in the aerospace sector, Formula 1 racing and deep sea exploration, this new type of lift is expected to be a game-changer in the building and construction industry.

“Composite material is not new, but its use in our lifts is groundbreaking,” said Alister Bennett, Managing Director of SLC, a joint venture between Far East Organization, Woh Hup and Pronus (HK).

Called 8, the prototype lift was largely assembled offsite, significantly reducing the time and labour needed in the installation. The easy installation also means less reliance on specialised labour, a boon for the lift sector, which is facing a shortage of engineers and technicians.

Moreover, it does not need expensive construction of deep pits and high overheads, and the cabin space can be made spacious due to maximisation of the shaft size and minimisation of the overhead and pit. It also requires fewer construction materials, with the prototype’s cabin weighing just 150kg, compared to about 1,500kg for a traditional lift with a similar capacity.

“We see great potential for our product in the building and construction industry as well as the retro-fitting industry... While traditional lifts require on average five to seven days for the installation of a single floor, with 8, the time will be shortened considerably to a minimum of one floor per day,” Bennett noted.

However, he told Channel NewsAsia that the new lift is not suitable for buildings with a height of more than 20 storeys. “We are initially setting a target of eight (floors) and that’s why this launch is called 8. When we get better, we’ll work to get higher ... but we will never be able to do high-rise lifts because the higher and faster you go, the lifts need to be heavier.”

While the composite lift industry here is still in its fledgling stages, SLC intends to develop this sector by leveraging on the existing expertise and capabilities of Singapore’s highly-skilled workforce.

|  A ChannelNewsAsia release|  January 12, 2017  |

The significant labour costs and geographic isolation of the New Zealand manufacturing industry has meant that in order to compete with international players, local manufacturers must look to innovate with new technologies and automate their production processes.To compete with global manufacturing hubs, leading Auckland-based injection moulding company, TCI New Zealand (TCI) were looking for an automated solution that would offer a more cost-effective means of producing its customers’ products. TCI found the solution in Universal Robots (UR) - a global developer and manufacturer of six-axis industrial robots. TCI has now deployed two of Universal’s industrial robotic arms: the UR3 and UR5, to perform labelling and assembly tasks for the company’s EasiYo Yoghurt Maker line, as well as its storage bins.

With a UR robot assisting, several key processes in the manufacture of these products have been automated, relieving employees of repetitive assembly processes and ensuring smooth production flow. The UR3 was the first machine implemented by TCI, with the costs of the robot recouped six months after it was first purchased. Satisfied with this return on investment, TCI then decided to purchase the UR5, with the payback period expected to be under 12 months.

Finding a solutionTCI is one of the largest privately-owned plastic injection moulding companies in New Zealand, based in Avondale, Auckland. For more than 20 years, TCI has manufactured a vast array of products, including building products, components used in instrumentation, navigation, rescue and communications, as well as a range of retail products including homewares, garden products and outdoor furniture for companies across New Zealand and the rest of the world.

“Previously we were paying two employees to work in 12 hour shifts to ensure around-the-clock production of our EasiYo Yoghurt Maker,” said Quintin Fowler, Manager Director at TCI. “If one employee didn’t turn up for work it meant the entire production line would be halted. This wasn’t really financially sustainable for us so we were looking for an automated solution that would guarantee quality assurance and help us to reduce costs.”

During its search for an automation solution, TCI came across UR’s technology at a trade show and made contact via Design Energy, its New Zealand distributor.

“We developed the layout for the production cell and designed and built an appropriate gripper unit for each of the applications,” said Mike Shatford, Managing Director at Design Energy. “TCI then manufactured the machine frames and mounted the various operating units in the relativities we had laid out. Once the machines were completed our technician spent time at TCI writing the robot programs and getting each cell operating to the customers’ requirements.”

“Design Energy were fantastic,” said Fowler. “We were initially considering an off-the-shelf robot from overseas, but I’m glad we were able to find a customisable solution.”

Robots in actionThe UR3 is a compact table-top robot that weighs just 11kg and is capable of handling payloads up to 3kg. The robot has a reach radius of up to 500mm and features 360-degree rotation on all wrist joints and infinite rotation on the end joint. It is ideal for manufacturers such as TCI that have limited factory floor space and a number of intricate processes.

TCI uses the UR3 to help label and place rubber feet on its EasiYo Yoghurt Makers. After a product is moulded, the UR3 aligns and passes the product though a label printer, then it adheres the label to the base of the product. The UR3 then inverts and places the product onto a mandrel, then picks up rubber feet from a bowl feeder and places them on the base of the product.

A pneumatic press is then activated, which presses the feet firmly on the product. The UR3 picks up the finished assembly and places it on a conveyer belt for delivery to the next process. The UR3’s controller provides control for all ancillary equipment including the label printer, bowl feeder, pneumatic press and conveyor.

The success of UR3 gave TCI the confidence to implement a UR5 robot to help assemble several different sizes of storage bins, from 40L up to 112L. The UR5 helps manufacturers automate repetitive and dangerous tasks with payloads up to 5kg and a reach radius of up to 850mm. The UR5 is suitable for collaborative processes such as picking, placing and testing.

“We use the UR5 to put wheels on storage bins and we programmed the robots to be able to place wheels on multiple sized storage bins,” said Fowler. “The robots are so easy-to-program that we can quickly change from one size to the next by pressing just a few buttons.”

Flexible, easy to program and safe to use“Both the UR3 and UR5 went beyond our expectations in what we were looking for in a robot,” Fowler noted. “These robots have the ability to perform the tasks that we need without being overly expensive or difficult to program. They also offered a quick return on our investment.

“UR’s robots can easily move around and fold over on themselves in very tight spaces. The robot can also operate safely alongside our staff without the need for guarding.”

All UR robots can be completely reprogrammed and deployed for other tasks in a matter of minutes. A graphical user interface with a teach function enables an operator to simply grab the robot arm and show it how a movement should be performed. The user-friendly interface then allows staff to drag and drop the routines to do their programming.

“The UR3 and UR5 are very flexible robots. They are very easy to reprogram, which is why we use the UR5 to help assemble all of our storage bins. The robot can be reset to perform different jobs depending on the size of the bin,” said Fowler.

In contrast to traditional industrial robots in the market, UR’s small and lightweight robotic arms are able to work safely alongside staff (subject to prior risk assessment). The robots’ state-of-the-art force limit safety feature automatically stops the robot from operating when its movement is obstructed. The robot will not exert a force greater than the limit specified in the adjustable safety settings.

“One thing I loved about UR was that we didn’t have to worry about guarding,” said Fowler. “Whereas a lot of the other robots in the market guarding was an issue because you’d have to use safety barriers for all the machines which just complicates the situation.”

The pay-offAccording to TCI, the company has been able to significantly reduce expenditure by using robots at a time when labour costs can be 10 to 20 times higher that of other overseas markets.

“We paid off the UR3 within six months, which means we can reinvest in further product development and innovation,” said Fowler. “We also saved around 75% on yearly product assembly labour costs for the UR3 and UR5.”

When asked what appealed to him the most about the UR3 and UR5 robots, Fowler pointed to their simple programming and consistency.

“The robots are easy to set up and reprogramming can take just a few minutes. However one of the biggest selling points for us is having that guarantee that the robots aren’t going to call in sick – production can go on 24/7 without us worrying about human related factors that might stop production.”

|  An AMTIL release  |  January 11,2017  |

Porous, 3-D forms of graphene developed at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) can be 10 times as strong as steel but much lighter.

A team of researchers at MIT has designed one of the strongest lightweight materials known, by compressing and fusing flakes of graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon. The new material, a sponge-like configuration with a density of just 5 percent, can have a strength 10 times that of steel.

In its two-dimensional form, graphene is thought to be the strongest of all known materials. But researchers until now have had a hard time translating that two-dimensional strength into useful three-dimensional materials.

The new findings show that the crucial aspect of the new 3-D forms has more to do with their unusual geometrical configuration than with the material itself, which suggests that similar strong, lightweight materials could be made from a variety of materials by creating similar geometric features.

The findings are being reported today in the journal Science Advances, in a paper by Markus Buehler, the head of MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and the McAfee Professor of Engineering; Zhao Qin, a CEE research scientist; Gang Seob Jung, a graduate student; and Min Jeong Kang MEng ’16, a recent graduate.

A team of MIT engineers has successfully designed a new 3-D material with five percent the density of steel and ten times the strength, making it one of the strongest lightweight materials known.

Other groups had suggested the possibility of such lightweight structures, but lab experiments so far had failed to match predictions, with some results exhibiting several orders of magnitude less strength than expected. The MIT team decided to solve the mystery by analyzing the material’s behavior down to the level of individual atoms within the structure. They were able to produce a mathematical framework that very closely matches experimental observations.

Two-dimensional materials — basically flat sheets that are just one atom in thickness but can be indefinitely large in the other dimensions — have exceptional strength as well as unique electrical properties. But because of their extraordinary thinness, “they are not very useful for making 3-D materials that could be used in vehicles, buildings, or devices,” Buehler says. “What we’ve done is to realize the wish of translating these 2-D materials into three-dimensional structures.”

The team was able to compress small flakes of graphene using a combination of heat and pressure. This process produced a strong, stable structure whose form resembles that of some corals and microscopic creatures called diatoms. These shapes, which have an enormous surface area in proportion to their volume, proved to be remarkably strong. “Once we created these 3-D structures, we wanted to see what’s the limit — what’s the strongest possible material we can produce,” says Qin. To do that, they created a variety of 3-D models and then subjected them to various tests. In computational simulations, which mimic the loading conditions in the tensile and compression tests performed in a tensile loading machine, “one of our samples has 5 percent the density of steel, but 10 times the strength,” Qin says.

Buehler says that what happens to their 3-D graphene material, which is composed of curved surfaces under deformation, resembles what would happen with sheets of paper. Paper has little strength along its length and width, and can be easily crumpled up. But when made into certain shapes, for example rolled into a tube, suddenly the strength along the length of the tube is much greater and can support substantial weight. Similarly, the geometric arrangement of the graphene flakes after treatment naturally forms a very strong configuration.

The new configurations have been made in the lab using a high-resolution, multimaterial 3-D printer. They were mechanically tested for their tensile and compressive properties, and their mechanical response under loading was simulated using the team’s theoretical models. The results from the experiments and simulations matched accurately.

The new, more accurate results, based on atomistic computational modeling by the MIT team, ruled out a possibility proposed previously by other teams: that it might be possible to make 3-D graphene structures so lightweight that they would actually be lighter than air, and could be used as a durable replacement for helium in balloons. The current work shows, however, that at such low densities, the material would not have sufficient strength and would collapse from the surrounding air pressure.

But many other possible applications of the material could eventually be feasible, the researchers say, for uses that require a combination of extreme strength and light weight. “You could either use the real graphene material or use the geometry we discovered with other materials, like polymers or metals,” Buehler says, to gain similar advantages of strength combined with advantages in cost, processing methods, or other material properties (such as transparency or electrical conductivity).

“You can replace the material itself with anything,” Buehler says. “The geometry is the dominant factor. It’s something that has the potential to transfer to many things.”

The unusual geometric shapes that graphene naturally forms under heat and pressure look something like a Nerf ball — round, but full of holes. These shapes, known as gyroids, are so complex that “actually making them using conventional manufacturing methods is probably impossible,” Buehler says. The team used 3-D-printed models of the structure, enlarged to thousands of times their natural size, for testing purposes.

For actual synthesis, the researchers say, one possibility is to use the polymer or metal particles as templates, coat them with graphene by chemical vapor deposit before heat and pressure treatments, and then chemically or physically remove the polymer or metal phases to leave 3-D graphene in the gyroid form. For this, the computational model given in the current study provides a guideline to evaluate the mechanical quality of the synthesis output.

The same geometry could even be applied to large-scale structural materials, they suggest. For example, concrete for a structure such a bridge might be made with this porous geometry, providing comparable strength with a fraction of the weight. This approach would have the additional benefit of providing good insulation because of the large amount of enclosed airspace within it.

Because the shape is riddled with very tiny pore spaces, the material might also find application in some filtration systems, for either water or chemical processing. The mathematical descriptions derived by this group could facilitate the development of a variety of applications, the researchers say.

“This is an inspiring study on the mechanics of 3-D graphene assembly,” says Huajian Gao, a professor of engineering at Brown University, who was not involved in this work. “The combination of computational modeling with 3-D-printing-based experiments used in this paper is a powerful new approach in engineering research. It is impressive to see the scaling laws initially derived from nanoscale simulations resurface in macroscale experiments under the help of 3-D printing,” he says.

This work, Gao says, “shows a promising direction of bringing the strength of 2-D materials and the power of material architecture design together.”

The research was supported by the Office of Naval Research, the Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, and BASF-North American Center for Research on Advanced Materials.

| A MITNews release |  January 10, 2017  |

All over the world, ageing populations and changing attitudes are making it harder to hold on to workers, believes Dr Rodney Brooks. Brent Balinski spoke to Brooks, founder of Rethink Robotics, about some demographic and technology shifts to watch out for and why it’s best to be realistic.

In the markets where Rethink sells its collaborative robots, ageing workforces and a shortage of younger workers available to replace retirees are a combination troubling manufacturers, according to founder, chairman and CTO, Dr Rodney Brooks.

It’s a problem that’s been brewing for many years, and an issue in China which he picked up on early in the millennium as co-founder of iRobot (which still produces its Roombas there, at a rate of around two million annually). The same goes for Adelaide-born Brooks’s adopted home of the US, he said. Ditto for Europe.

[Continue to full article on Manufacturers'Monthly]