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Posts Tagged ‘robots’

FoxConn Is Building an "Empire of Robots"

Chances are, if you’ve heard of the Chinese technology giant FoxConn, it’s because it manufactures the iPhone and iPad. Last year, at an iPhone manufacturing complex in South China, there were a number of worker suicides that made news.

In apparent attempt to fix some of its labor issues, Foxconn’s parent company, Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry, is now making a big push into robots.

From the AFP:

The project, which is initially forecast to cost the Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Tw$6.7 billion ($223 million), was unveiled Saturday when Terry Gou, chairman of the conglomerate, broke ground for the construction of a research and development unit in Taichung, central Taiwan.

“The investment marks the beginning of Hon Hai’s bid to build an empire of robots,” the Central Taiwan Science Park authorities said in a statement.


FREAK-est Links

This week, why SpongeBob hurts kids’ willpower, a restaurant in Saudi Arabia fines you for unfinished plates, robots inventing their own language, Indonesia’s floating trash problem, jet packs are finally for real, and lie detectors that actually work.


FREAK-est Links

This week, the fastest human-like robot, why the government just bought $40 million of chicken, an iPhone app to keep you from hitting the snooze bar, the environmental upside of cloud computing, and a scientific explanation of the phenomenon known as Beer Goggles.


A Must-Have Robot

I have often heard people say that robots will prove immensely useful in performing household tasks, but I have had a hard time understanding how. I have also wondered why so much scientific effort goes into making robots look like humans. It is not easy to design robots that walk on two legs, for instance. But after reading this interview . . .