Lifesaving Radio uses artificial intelligence to generate music at the ideal tempo for optimal surgical performance. Fox News Digital spoke to the team behind it. As artificial intelligence and other technologies continue to move into the medical field, a growing number of doctors are showing interest in how these innovations can transform all aspects of patient care -- including surgery. Augmented reality (AR) smart glasses are wearable devices that enhance how people interact with the world around them. This is one such technology that's seeing wider use. "AR devices provide users with an enhanced view of their surroundings by overlaying digital images, graphics and information onto the physical environment they see through the glasses," said Paul Travers, president and CEO of New York-based Vuzix, a leading supplier of smart glasses and AR technologies and products, in an interview with Fox News Digital.

Despite one of Team Explorer's ground robots returning to the garage with bent parts and covered in mud, the team was proud of how it performed during the final run of DARPA's SubT Challenge. "This one drove off a cliff," said Matt Travers, one of the team's co-leads, pointing to the smallest ground robot. "But I think it did so in a very valiant way. The team sent in eight robots during the one-hour run. Three drones launched from the start gate and one from the back of a ground robot.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are working with Apple to develop new ways to disassemble old technology. This work builds on Apple's existing recycling innovations, including its recycling robots Daisy and Dave. As Apple sought to support research initiatives that reimagine disassembly of devices and recovery of materials, the company worked with CMU's Biorobotics Lab in the Robotics Institute. Matt Travers and Howie Choset, co-directors of the lab, and their team are designing machine learning models that will enable robots to teach themselves how to disassemble a device they have never seen before. "We're building robots, and we're building AI so the machine can see any piece of electronics and figure out how to take it apart," Travers said.

We spoke to Ericsson IoT Head Jeff Travers during MWC 2019 about where the industry is heading and how emerging technologies are opening new possibilities. A running theme of this year's event was how technologies such as the IoT, 5G, AI, and blockchain are converging in powerful ways. Last year was a lot of talk about their potential, this year we're seeing more actual deployments. Transportation is one area where the IoT is having a major impact. The morning of our interview, Ericsson announced it's helped to build a '5G smart harbour' at the Port of Qingdao in partnership with China Unicom.

Vuzix has been making smart glasses for well over a decade, primarily for enterprise use such as medical applications or stocking shelves in warehouses. Last year, Vuzix teased a prototype of the Blade, a smaller, slimmer pair made for consumers. Not only does it come with a floating display a la Google Glass, it's also compatible with Alexa (and, eventually, Google Assistant). Now the company says it's ready to ship the Blade for $1,000 as it attempts to pick up where Google Glass left off. "This represents a huge step forward for us," Vuzix CEO Paul Travers told Engadget.

A few days after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico City last month, Carnegie Mellon University roboticists were contacted to see if their snake robots could help with search-and-rescue efforts. Mexican rescuers were still trying find people in the rubble of collapsed buildings, and even though several days had passed, they thought it'd be worth trying to bring in the snakebots. Within 24 hours, a team of CMU roboticists had packed their gear and headed out to the disaster site. We spoke with Matt Travers, who was on the ground in Mexico City operating the robots, along with Howie Choset, who heads CMU's Biorobotics Lab where the snake robots are developed, about their experience with using robots in a real disaster and how, although no survivors were found during the rescue missions they assisted with, they learned an enormous amount being on-site. IEEE Spectrum: Were you and your robots ready for a real disaster? Howie Choset: Since the beginning of my adventure into snake robots, I've been interested in search and rescue.

In the battle of humans versus machine on the warehouse floor, some companies have found common ground. Instead of developing technology to completely replace manpower, these firms are designing robots meant to work alongside people. These robots, for example, can guide workers to items to be picked or can transport goods across a warehouse to be packed and shipped. Deutsche Post AG's DHL is testing "swarming" robots at a facility in Memphis, Tenn. These machines help workers pick out medical devices that need to be shipped quickly.

To understand human consciousness, we need to know why it exists in the first place. New experimental evidence suggests it may have evolved to help us learn and adapt to changing circumstances far more rapidly and effectively. We used to think consciousness was a uniquely human trait, but neuroscientists now believe we share it with many other animals, including mammals, birds and octopuses. While plants and arguably some animals like jellyfish seem able to respond to the world around them without any conscious awareness, many other animals consciously experience and perceive their environment. In the 19th century, Thomas Henry Huxley and others argued that such consciousness is an "epiphenomenon" – a side effect of the workings of the brain that has no causal influence, the way a steam whistle has no effect on the way a steam engine works.

Among programmers, there's a principle called DRY, which stands for "Don't repeat yourself." It's an attempt to avoid writing code that duplicates the function of other code. DRY embodies the same resistance to needless repetition as the more common idiom, "Don't reinvent the wheel." Among those making robots, a group that includes software and hardware engineers attempts to adhere to these principles, as can be seen in designs that borrow from nature, from the evolved forms of life on Earth. Biomimicry and bioinspired design provide a way to avoid reinventing the wheel.