A Colorado-based manufacturer is touting a new security guard that can detect heat, smoke, humidity, gases and motion. "Ramsee the Robot" was developed to provide cost-effective security. It can send alerts to a monitoring center, which can then dispatch a first responder if needed. "A robot is never going to show up late," said Justin Davis, vice-president of corporate development for Gamma2 Robotics, the robot's manufacturer. "It's never going to call in sick.

Robots may not yet have the authority to influence their human masters, according to new research. The study stationed a cyborg guard beside a table of food marked with a'reserved' sign in a student common room. Researchers from New York-based Cornell University used a mObi robot manufactured by Bossa Nova in a simple test. While the robot is not designed to look particularly menacing or authoritative, it has cameras that enable it to'see' what people around it are doing. The behaviour of hundreds of students was captured by a hidden GoPro action camera, reports New Scientist. The results showed that a disappointing seven per cent snaffled reserved food from the table, despite the robot guard's presence.

Robots may not yet have the authority to influence their human masters, according to new research. The study stationed a cyborg guard beside a table of food marked with a'reserved' sign in a student common room. Researchers from New York-based Cornell University used a mObi robot manufactured by Bossa Nova in a simple test. While the robot is not designed to look particularly menacing or authoritative, it has cameras that enable it to'see' what people around it are doing. The behaviour of hundreds of students was captured by a hidden GoPro action camera, reports New Scientist.

Even the smartest of intruders would struggle to slip past this security guard. Armed with lasers and infrared cameras, a new security robot is promising to take over the tedious task of patrolling buildings. RAMSEE can provide round-the-clock monitoring of an area by scanning its environment as it trundles through rooms, looking for motion, along with signs of fire, smoke and gas leaks. Lidar is a remote sensing technology that measures distance by shooting a laser at a target and analysing the light that is reflected back. The technology was developed in the early 1960s and uses laser imaging with radar technology that can calculate distances. It was first used in meteorology to measure clouds by the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

A lovely nonthreatening body for a robot that can see warm bodies. Gamma 2 Robotics' RAMSEE borrows the name of pharaohs, which is fitting since it works the graveyard shift. The security bot is an autonomous patrolman, rolling around empty halls and hard-to-surveil places, its LIDAR eyes and infrared cameras scanning the environment around it at all times. It is a robot built for empty spaces, alerting its human overseers to any harmful intrusion of life. And here, a pair of the robots scan a hallway before peering into the beyond.