A scanning robot from 4D Retail Technology can scan an entire grocery store in about an hour. AI might be a hot topic but you'll still need to justify those projects. The reason you're hearing more about robots these days has a lot to do with non-robotic technologies. After all, for the last fifty years mechanical engineers have been able to make some pretty snazzy machines that move on their own. It's only with the rise of complementary sensor and computing technologies that robots are starting to show their true usefulness outside of factories.

SAS on Tuesday marked the general release of SAS Factory Miner, an automated tool that uses machine learning techniques to develop, test and identify hundreds of best-fit predictive models within minutes. Announced last month, Factory Miner promises better, segment-specific predictive performance, and it also goes a long way toward easing the analytic talent shortage. See how the cloud is disrupting traditional operating models for IT departments and entire organizations. SAS Factory Miner is a response to all of these imperatives. It helps companies with find-grained segmentation by automating model building across hundreds of segments and, potentially, thousands of sub-segments.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said the partnership illustrates the commitment both companies have made to advancing the use-cases of AI. Nvidia and Chinese search engine giant Baidu are teaming up to develop a cloud-based platform for use in artificially intelligent, self-driving cars. See how the cloud is disrupting traditional operating models for IT departments and entire organizations. The partnership combines Nvidia's self-driving computing platform with Baidu's cloud and mapping technology to develop an algorithm-based operating system capable of powering complex navigation systems in autonomous vehicles. The open platform will be available for branded car OEM consumer vehicle offerings, as well as fleets of driverless commercial vehicles.

In 1961, a robotic arm nicknamed Unimate joined the General Motors assembly line to perform basic welding tasks that were unpleasant and particularly dangerous for humans. The 4000-pound, six-axis robot ran off of magnetic tape. "If you start with Unimate," says Melonee Wise, CEO of Fetch Robotics, an industrial robotics startup that received a $20M investment from SoftBank in June, "you see that industrial robots were developed and entered the workforce based on a very specific way of thinking." Though subsequent robots would achieve greater dexterity, strength, and speed, Unimate served as the proto-model. For the next half century most industrial robots were caged-off behemoths that handled repeatable tasks adroitly but required costly physical reconfiguration to take on new tasks or change operating environments.

The International Space Station (ISS) is slated to get a new robot, and you have a chance to help design it. NASA's Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) has teamed up with work-for-hire site Freelancer.com on the Astrobee, a free-flying robot currently under development. The project will involve designing concepts for a robotic arm for the Astrobee. NASA and Freelancer will be crowdsourcing designs from the site's 17 million freelancers around the world. AI might be a hot topic but you'll still need to justify those projects.

This is a guest post by Open Source Robotics Foundation CEO Brian Gerkey. AI might be a hot topic but you'll still need to justify those projects. Eight years ago, Morgan Quigley, Eric Berger and Andrew Ng published a paper that was not about ROS. It was about STAIR, the STanford Artificial Intelligence Robot, which used a library called Switchyard to pass messages between software modules to perform complex manipulation tasks like stapler grasping. Switchyard was a purpose-built framework that was designed to be modular and robot-independent, and it was such a good idea that in 2009, "ROS: An Open-Source Robot Operating System" was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Japan.

In 2009, Abdul Razack, head of big data and analytics at Infosys, was watching the men's singles French Open tennis final when something happened that he said has stuck with him ever since. See how the cloud is disrupting traditional operating models for IT departments and entire organizations. Sweden's Robin Söderling had beaten four-time defending champion Rafael Nadal in the fourth round, and went on to cement his position in the final, where he faced Roger Federer. "Federer was down two sets -- down 0-30 -- and at that point he turned the entire match around," Razack said. "As a fan, that's the story that has stuck in my mind -- for someone to be able to go back and relive that match with the data that was captured in the umpire's chair, it's a powerful thing to do and improves the experience of the consumer, the media, opponents, and it's all around better for the game."

NAO is an endearing, interactive robot companion that can be personalized and used for lots of different tasks. The idea is to customize the bot, and it's been a big hit, with over 7000 sold. We are often reassured that even though robots are automating many jobs, humans possess emotional intelligence and unique decision-making skills that can't be replicated. But new research proves that robots can actually be quite good at making tough choices, even when many factors complicate the matter. A team of researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab developed a technique called "apprenticeship scheduling" to enable robots to help with scheduling in various workplaces.

An Engadget report published last week, "Hangouts eavesdrops on your chats to offer'smart suggestions'" describes a new "spy/valet" feature being added to Google's popular video chat tool. "Google's Hangouts is gaining a handy, but slightly creepy new feature today. The popular chat app will now act as a digital spy-slash-valet by eavesdropping on your conversations to offer'smart suggestions.' For instance, if a pal asks'where are you?' it'll immediately prompt you to share your location, then open a map so you can pin it precisely." It's sad that this sort of thing still gets meekly labeled as "creepy".

Google announced today it has acquired machine learning startup Moodstocks in an effort to bolster its work around smartphone image and item recognition. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. See how the cloud is disrupting traditional operating models for IT departments and entire organizations. Moodstocks began developing image recognition technology in 2012 and more recently shifted into object recognition technology. The Paris-based startup said on its website that its "dream has been to give eyes to machines by turning cameras into smart sensors able to make sense of their surroundings."