Six months worth of funding deals thus far in 2016 indicate that investments in robotics - equity fundings, and acquisitions - are accelerating, particularly in big deals involving Chinese money. Although Uber isn't really a robot company, they acquired a whole robotics department from CMU and have plans to work with car manufacturers to make unmanned Uber cars in the near future, hence they are included in this recap. Just last week Uber announced a strategic partnership - which included an investment of an undetermined amount - with Toyota. Uber has taken a 3.5 billion investment from a government that effectively prohibits women from driving--let alone driving for Uber. Uber also has accepted a 3.5 billion investment from a government that requires women to have male guardians.

Every drone is an answer to that fundamental question of life: could a flying robot do this better? The Skylark C, by Israel-based defense company Elbit Systems, is built to launch from a boat, take a quick look around the sea, and then return to its crew. Think of it almost like a hitchhiking seagull, only instead of demanding snacks it captures pictures of potential enemies. As a maritime vessel organic asset, Skylark C provides the capabilities to inspect maritime activities from a safe distance, observe targets from a bird's eye view, perform reconnaissance over coastal areas and perform continuous covert surveillance, thus extending the vessel's ISR capabilities with respect to range, rate and quality of information obtained. In essence, Elbit is billing its new drone as an easy-to-use flying scout, which can take a closer look than the people on board the small ship that launched it.

A Chinese factory near Shanghai is relying on a new breed of workers to maintain its competitive advantage in assembling electronics devices: small robots designed in Germany. Suzhou Victory Precision Manufacture Co.'s chairman, Yugen Gao, said the days when the company drew its strength from China's cheap and hardworking employees are gone. "We've been losing that edge in the past three years," said Mr. Gao in his office, overlooking rows of buildings where a battalion of robots was cranking out computer keyboards. China's appetite for European-made industrial robots is rapidly growing, as rising wages, a shrinking workforce and cultural changes drive more Chinese businesses to automation. The types of robots favored by Chinese manufacturers are also changing, as automation spreads from heavy industries such as auto manufacturing to those that require more precise, flexible robots capable of handling and assembling smaller products, including consumer electronics and apparel. At stake is whether China can retain its dominance in manufacturing.

Panasonic Corp. will begin selling on a trial basis in about 2019 tomato-harvesting robots, a product prompted by a shortage of farmers and an aging agricultural population in Japan, a company official said Tuesday. The equipment is being developed under a government-sponsored national project to use technology to make Japanese farm products competitive in cost with overseas produce after tariffs on most imported goods are removed under the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal. The robot will determine if a tomato is ripe enough to pick by analyzing its color via an advanced camera and sensor equipment. Utilizing information technology, Panasonic also plans to develop a system that can automatically control the temperature and humidity in a greenhouse depending on the state of vegetables growing there. It also plans to develop a device to check the quality of tomatoes for shipment.

A Tesla electric car caught fire during a promotional tour in southwest France, and those aboard escaped unharmed. Tesla said in a statement that it is'working with the authorities to establish the facts' about Monday's fire in Bayonne. The driver was quoted in local newspaper Sud Ouest as saying he answered a Facebook ad offering test drives of the Model S sedan. The fire was captured by a passing motoring journalist. The driver was quoted in local newspaper Sud Ouest as saying he answered a Facebook ad offering test drives of the Model S sedan.

Hexaware Technologies Limited, a leading global provider of IT, Business Process and Consulting Services, and WorkFusion, the leading Smart Process Automation (SPA) provider, today announced a partnership to help enterprise operations leverage smart automation software to realize higher productivity, drive agility in generating new products and reduce operational cost. The combination of Hexaware's industry and process expertise, and WorkFusion's best-in-class automation software will provide customers the ability to rapidly deploy and scale transformational technology to achieve business goals. Hexaware has constantly strived to provide business value to its clients through significant cost savings and creating opportunities for revenue generation. This partnership aligns with Hexaware's'Shrink IT Grow Digital' strategy that has radically revolutionized digital transformation journeys of their customers. This strategy helps global firms dramatically reduce commodity operations and IT costs, while enabling realization of value from digital initiatives through solutions across industries such as Telecom, Banking & Financial Services, Healthcare & Insurance, Travel & Logistics, and Manufacturing & Consumer.

Ford outlined a few of the ways it's aiming to ship driverless cars by 2021, and part of the plan involves acquisitions. CEO Mark Fields revealed at a press event in Palo Alto today that the automaker acquired SAIPS, an Israeli company focusing on machine learning and computer vision. It's also partnering exclusively with Nirenberg Neuroscience, to bring more "humanlike intelligence" to machine learning components of driverless car systems. SAIPS' technology brings image and video processing algorithms, as well as deep learning tech focused on processing and classifying input signals, all key ingredients in the special sauce that makes up autonomous vehicle tech. This company's expertise should help with on-board interpretation of data captured by sensors on Ford's self-driving cars, and turning that data into usable info for the car's virtual driver system.

Imagine the endless possibilities of learning from 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated every day. Artificial intelligence (AI), which began its journey 60 years ago is well on its course to make this implausible scenario a reality. Artificial Intelligence, is slowly taking over our lives. From personal assistants like Siri in Apple products to stock trading to medical diagnosis, AI is able to learn from seemingly unstructured data, take decisions and perform actions in a way previously unimagined. Businesses too are undergoing digitization rapidly.

One of the most fascinating developments in computer user interfaces in recent years is the rise of "bots". Some people hail it as the "new command line", but it is much more than that. It is an Artificial Intelligence "robot" in messaging applications. You can message it as if it is a human user, and ask it to do things for you or have a conversation with you. With the rising popularity of messaging apps, users are increasingly interested in this mode of communication -- some see this as the next step of the continuous user interface evolution from text command line to GUI to web apps to mobile apps and then to "bots". There are already many innovative uses of bots, and people are coming up with new ways every day!