As a High School student Carlton had been withdrawn and quiet, unsocial and uninvolved. One of his teachers was convinced that he was using drugs because he was so pale and tired. In reality, he had been up late into the night, designing, building and refining his electrically independent computer. He drew his own blood for it, leading to symptoms of anemia. His prototype was, in retrospect, an archaic fossil as soon as it was operational, but he won a National competition with it. He won because his design exemplified the philosophical goals of the contest: energy efficiency.

An industrial robotic arm pours a glass of beer at the Automatica trade fair in Munich on Tuesday. Munich: Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons" and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution.Robots are being deployed in ever-greater numbers in factories and also taking on tasks such as personal care or surgery, raising fears over unemployment, wealth inequality and alienation. Their growing intelligence, pervasiveness and autonomy requires rethinking everything from taxation to legal liability, a draft European Parliament motion, dated May 31, suggests. Some robots are even taking on a human form. Visitors to the world's biggest travel show in March were greeted by a lifelike robot developed by Japan's Toshiba and were helped by another made by France's Aldebaran Robotics.

Munich: Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons" and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution.Robots are being deployed in ever-greater numbers in factories and also taking on tasks such as personal care or surgery, raising fears over unemployment, wealth inequality and alienation. Their growing intelligence, pervasiveness and autonomy requires rethinking everything from taxation to legal liability, a draft European Parliament motion, dated May 31, suggests. Some robots are even taking on a human form. Visitors to the world's biggest travel show in March were greeted by a lifelike robot developed by Japan's Toshiba and were helped by another made by France's Aldebaran Robotics. The draft motion called on the European Commission to consider "that at least the most sophisticated autonomous robots could be established as having the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations".

"We think it would be very bureaucratic and would stunt the development of robotics," he told reporters at the Automatica robotics trade fair in Munich, while acknowledging that a legal framework for self-driving cars would be needed soon. The report added that robotics and artificial intelligence may result in a large part of the work now done by humans being taken over by robots, raising concerns about the future of employment and the viability of social security systems. The draft motion, drawn up by the European parliament's committee on legal affairs also said organisations should have to declare savings they made in social security contributions by using robotics instead of people, for tax purposes. Schwarzkopf said there was no proven correlation between increasing robot density and unemployment, pointing out that the number of employees in the German automotive industry rose by 13 percent between 2010 and 2015, while industrial robot stock in the industry rose 17 percent in the same period. The motion faces an uphill battle to win backing from the various political blocks in European Parliament.

Google can see a future where robots help us unload the dishwasher and sweep the floor. The challenge is making sure they don't inadvertently knock over a vase --- or worse -- while doing so. Researchers at Alphabet Inc. unit Google, along with collaborators at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and OpenAI -- an artificial intelligence development company backed by Elon Musk -- have some ideas about how to design robot minds that won't lead to undesirable consequences for the people they serve. They published a technical paper Tuesday outlining their thinking. The motivation for the research is the immense popularity of artificial intelligence, software that can learn about the world and act within it.

Faraday Future isn't waiting for Michigan to get its act together before it starts testing self-driving cars in the US. Reuters has confirmed that the fledgling company has received approval to try autonomous vehicles on California roads later this year. It's still not saying just when there will be a self-driving machine you can buy (the'regular' electric car is still coming first), but the testing brings the startup a step closer to making that happen. One thing's for sure: between Faraday, GM, Honda and other car makers, there will be a lot of hands-off transportation cruising Golden State streets before long.

Faraday Future plans to begin testing prototype self-driving electric vehicles on California roads later this year after winning approval from the state, an industry source said on Tuesday.

Waterloo, Ontario, is a boom town. An hour west of Toronto, the city rumbles with construction work. Even the Older Mennonites of St. Jacobs, one town over, are digging up their main street, forcing their horse-and-buggies to detour. The region's growth stems largely from the University of Waterloo, whose intensive internship programs have made it a magnet for tech recruiting. In the '90s the city birthed Research in Motion and its Blackberry platform, which briefly dominated the mobile industry. Today, Waterloo is also a bot town.

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. The machines have all the answer. The question is how long they will still need humans. I want you to spend 30 minutes of your day composing an employee motivation video that includes the maximum number of nightmare scenarios and buzzwordy cliches. If any of them bite, we here at Technically Incorrect want to see if it beats the quite body-shivering, bloviatory effort of Tronc.

Back in 1997, Andy Grove, then chief executive officer of Intel, became one of the first corporate titans to embrace the teachings of Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. Sensing that Intel might be undercut by PC chip rivals with cheaper wares, Grove invited Christensen to speak to his team about industrial leaders of the past who had waited too long to address emerging threats. Within a few quarters, Intel had brought out a line of lower-end Celeron chips for PCs, which pretty much smashed the dreams of Intel wannabes such as Advanced Micro Devices. Intel is no longer a case study in adaptability. On the contrary, it has whiffed in the market for mobile chips used in smartphones and tablets, by far the largest new opportunity for chip makers in the past 10 years.