Bold Robotics LLC has created a cloud-based software-as-a-service business that tends the emerging world of automated manufacturing devices -- such as 3-D printers -- with a co-robot arm.

But I wanted to make the community aware of an interesting new set of problems. How would you modify your favorite algorithm, if some of the choices you made were irrevocable? For example, writing the size of a mosquito to a memory location can be done an infinite number of times, but killing a mosquito with a laser can be done only once, we cannot bring the insect back to life. In a new paper we consider one such problem, irrevocable sampling from a stream.

Farms of 3D printers are a potential solution to batch production, with some companies relying on numerous machines to 3D print a large group of parts at once. While they may increase output, print farms may also be labor intensive to operate. To demonstrate the overall utility of its cloud robotics platform, an Oregon startup called Tend.ai has deployed a robotic arm, artificial intelligence and cloud computing to create an automated print farm. Tend.ai has built what it suggests is a universal machine automation solution that combines a number of components into a cloud robotics platform. While the specific make and model of each piece of hardware is left up to the user, all one needs to get started with Tend.ai is a robotic arm, a webcam and a robotic gripper.

The future is folding, if the exhibits at a major New York tech exhibition are to be believed. Pocket size drones, 3D printers, phone accessories and cutting-edge wearables all took center stage at CE Week, which kicks off today. CE Week is designed to showcase products and services set to launch in the second half of 2016, which all focus around the world of technology. 'This is the year that a new ecosystem of products that communicate with other products, immersive entertainment systems and emerging technologies will really begin to take hold,' said Eric Schwartz, executive producer, CE Week. 'CE Week is a way for those most passionate about technology to see the future, now.' 'New York City, with its burgeoning finance, media and high tech industries provides a great backdrop.'

If you've got more than a handful of 3D printers or other devices running at a time, it's a full-time job keeping them going -- removing and packaging products, tweaking settings, pushing "OK" after minor errors, that sort of thing. Why not have a robot do it for you? Tend.ai is a new company that helps you train collaborative robots to perform machine tending, something generally reserved for bots serving heavy industry. "This whole thing started because a friend of mine down the street literally has 20 3D printers, and his wife was having to run out every three minutes to keep them running," said Mark Silliman, co-founder and CEO of Tend.ai, in an interview. Silliman's company Smartwaiver was acquired in December, and his co-founders have also had a few recent exits.

The seabed holds some fascinating historical secrets, but unlike monuments on land, they're largely hidden from view. Now, archaeologists in the United Kingdom are using 3D printing to bring two historical shipwrecks to life for history enthusiasts and experts alike. Using data from photogrammetry (measuring the distance between objects from photographs) and sonar imaging, the researchers have produced scale models of a 17th-century shipwreck near Drumbeg, in Scotland, and the remains of the HMHS Anglia, a steamship that was used as a floating hospital during World War I. The steamship was sunk by a mine off the south coast of England. "It was a proof of concept for us, trying to establish what could be done using sound and light, but there are so many different applications you could use this for," said maritime archaeologist John McCarthy, a project manager at Wessex Archaeology who carried out dives at the Scottish site and was in charge of producing the 3D models.

Whether you're reading this article on a smartphone, tablet or laptop, chances are the device in front of you contains components from at least six countries spanning three or more continents. Its sleek exterior belies the complicated and intricate set of internal parts that only a global supply chain can provide. Over the past century, finished products made in a single country have become increasingly hard to find as globalization -- weighted a term as it is -- has stretched supply chains to the ends of the Earth. Now, anything from planes, trains and automobiles to computers, cellphones and appliances can trace its hundreds of pieces to nearly as many companies around the world. And its assembly might take place in a different country still.

A new maker of self-driving vehicles burst onto the scene Thursday in partnership with IBM's supercomputer platform Watson, and it is ready to roll right …

Autodesk has been busy bolstering its cloud and hardware portfolios over the last few years as it works to fuel development of cloud-based technologies and advances in 3D printing technology. To that end, the design software maker today announced several major updates to its cloud-based platform Forge as well as key investments in three startups via its 100 million Forge Fund. Autodesk first launched the Forge Platform-as-a-Service offering last year in an effort to attract developers who could build applications and services using Autodesk's APIs and SDKs. Since its inception, Autodesk says the Forge program has attracted developers across the architecture, engineering, construction and manufacturing industries, as well as emerging areas such as AR, additive manufacturing, and IoT. Autodesk then launched the 100 million Forge Fund to grow the developer base even further and advance "the future of how things are designed, made, and used."

Alphabet Inc., the owner of Google, is using its computing prowess to branch out into a dizzying array of new areas, from medical diagnoses to "transformative" partnerships between humans and artificial intelligence, laying out its ambition at the company's annual shareholder meeting. Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt on Wednesday also disclosed that the company's Fiber fast internet service has new wireless technology that will cut the cost of hooking up homes because it won't have to dig up people's gardens to lay fiber optic cables. This may make build-outs cheaper and is probably part of the reason Fiber is expanding to 22 cities across the U.S. Schmidt's comments on the web service, in response to a shareholder question, came at an upbeat gathering at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters that was typically sparsely attended. Sundar Pichai, the Google chief executive officer, attended, along with Ruth Porat, who's been chief financial officer for just more than a year. David Drummond, chief legal officer, also turned up, but no Larry Page or Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google.