Supervisors in San Francisco voted Tuesday to give city police the ability to use potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations -- following an emotionally charged debate that reflected divisions on the politically liberal board over support for law enforcement. The vote was 8-3, with the majority agreeing to grant police the option despite strong objections from civil liberties and other police oversight groups. Opponents said the authority would lead to the further militarization of a police force already too aggressive with poor and minority communities. Supervisor Connie Chan, a member of the committee that forwarded the proposal to the full board, said she understood concerns over use of force but that "according to state law, we are required to approve the use of these equipments. So here we are, and it's definitely not a easy discussion."

Robots will help H-E-B grocery stores keep up with the growing demand for online grocery services amid the pandemic. The San Antonio, Texas-based grocery chain has partnered with the automation firm Swisslog to deploy a number of robots to support the chain's curbside pick-up and delivery business. Swisslog is providing warehouses that use modular "Autostore" robots to fulfill small online orders, the companies said in a joint press release. A video demonstration on YouTube shows how the automated system works. The robots run along tracks to gather items based on digital orders.

The owner of the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 power plant is trying this week to touch melted fuel at the bottom of the plant for the first time since the disaster almost eight years ago, a tiny but key step toward retrieving the radioactive material amid a ¥21.5 trillion ($195 billion) cleanup effort. Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. will on Wednesday insert a robot developed by Toshiba Corp. to make contact with material believed to contain melted fuel inside the containment vessel of the unit 2 reactor, one of three units that melted down after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. "We plan to confirm if we can move or lift the debris or if it crumbles," Joji Hara, a spokesman for Tepco said by phone Friday. Tepco doesn't plan to collect samples during the survey. The country is seeking to clean up the Fukushima disaster, the world's worst atomic accident since Chernobyl, which prompted a mass shutdown of its reactors.

Major repairs can take a long time to complete. To tackle these problems, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has partnered with the Georgia Tech Research Institute to develop robotic technology that automatically detects and then seals cracks in the road. When prototype testing is completed the resulting'Roadbot' will be fully automated and require only a single operator reports Government Computer News. The technology could also save highway departments across the country money due to the pro-active approach of sealing smaller cracks before they become larger scale repaving projects. The prototype can be mounted on a trailer and then using LED lights, cameras and an advanced set of algoriths to locate cracks.