The program is a result of a $1.25 million gift from the private McCain Foundation.

Dutch designer Joris Laarman has built his career through emerging technologies like 3D printing and robotics. But as a student 15 years ago, he didn't even own a computer. "After my graduation I got a computer, which changed everything," he said in a phone interview. "My generation was the first to know what it was like before computers, but who also grew up with them." From open source furniture designs to a 3D-printed footbridge made from stainless steel, Laarman's work lies at the intersection of design and technology.

Space is indifferent to your suffering. And it certainly doesn't care how difficult it is for humans to get stuff done in the void: practical things like screwing in bolts and drinking water and 3-D printing replacement parts. But a company called Made in Space is indifferent to space's indifference. In a first, it's showed that it can 3-D print in a thermal vacuum chamber, which simulates the nastiness of space. It's a milestone in the outfit's ambitious Archinaut program, which hopes to launch a 3-D printer with robot arms into orbit.

Data-driven management has risen sharply from a decade ago, when Thomas Davenport wrote Competing on Analytics.Data is now the critical tool for managing many corporate functions, including marketing, pricing, supply chain, operations, and more. This movement is being further fueled by the promise of AI and machine learning, and by the ease of collecting and storing data about every facet of our daily lives. But has the pendulum swung too far? Are managers relying excessively on data to guide their decisions, abdicating their own knowledge and experience? One possible solution may be found in Agent-Based Simulation(ABS), a novel approach to solving complex business problems through computer simulations.

A three-storey house is being designed, planned and built predominately by robots and 3D printers.

A sleek mechanical arm plunges into a pool of what looks like milky gray ink in Carbon's lab in Redwood City, California. The black arm slowly moves upwards, pulling a latticed plastic cube out of the bath, shiny and dripping with ink: a large-scale model of the porous structure of bone. Joseph DeSimone, Carbon's CEO and cofounder, looks on. DeSimone, a polymer chemist, helped invent these machines, and he still gets a kick out of watching them work. It is a form of 3-D printing, but it's done in a novel way that is faster than previous techniques and works with many more types of plastics.

At the Empa and Eawag NEST building in Dübendorf, eight ETH Zurich professors as part of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication are collaborating with business partners to build the three-storey DFAB HOUSE. It is the first building in the world to be designed, planned and built using predominantly digital processes. Robots that build walls and 3D printers that print entire formworks for ceiling slabs – digital fabrication in architecture has developed rapidly in recent years. As part of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication, architects, robotics specialists, material scientists, structural engineers and sustainability experts from ETH Zurich have teamed up with business partners to put several new digital building technologies from the laboratory into practice. Construction is taking place at NEST, the modular research and innovation building that Empa and Eawag built on their campus in Dübendorf to test new building and energy technologies under real conditions.

Data-driven management has risen sharply from a decade ago, when Thomas Davenport wrote Competing on Analytics. Data is now the critical tool for managing many corporate functions, including marketing, pricing, supply chain, operations, and more. This movement is being further fueled by the promise of AI and machine learning, and by the ease of collecting and storing data about every facet of our daily lives. But has the pendulum swung too far? Are managers relying excessively on data to guide their decisions, abdicating their own knowledge and experience?

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing or 3D printing are emerging technologies that have a huge potential in a variety of industries and applications. Despite both technologies being fairly new, particularly 3D printing, procurement market intelligence experts at SpendEdge state that these technologies have several applications in the supply chain for addressing procurement challenges, and will very soon become an integral part due to its improved and sophisticated functionalities. Rapid prototyping is one of the most common uses of additive manufacturing. Since designing a successful product can be very expensive and time-consuming, 3D printed prototyping makes it quite simple at the same time shortens the manufacturing cycle. The impact of AM on supply chain is massive, some of which include increased manufacturing flexibility, reduced material waste, and the ability to employ decentralized manufacturing strategies.

Researchers have developed the first soft robot that can walk on rough surfaces such as sand and pebbles. The four-legged, 3-D printed bot's X shape layout allow it to have different types of walks for different terrains. The researchers say it could be used to record sensor data in dangerous environments or for search and rescue missions. The researcher tested the performance of the bot (pictured) with different leg configurations, gait sequences over various terrains, and it was able to successfully navigate over large rocks, under inclined surfaces and over small pebbles, walking at speeds up to 20 millimeters (0.8 inches) per second The robot, designed by researchers at the University of California in San Diego, was possible thanks to a high-end 3-D printer that allowed the researchers to print soft and rigid materials together within the same components. The robot's soft legs naturally conform to its surroundings during operation, resulting in a robot with the ability to crawl through a variety of terrains with limited computation and no sensing capabilities.