Generations of computing professionals may remember Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., as the author of the seminal text on system engineering, The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineeringa and his essays such as No Silver Bullet--Essence and Accident in Software Engineering.b Those who worked with Brooks, winner of the 1999 ACM A.M. Turing Award "for landmark contributions to computer architecture, operating systems, and software engineering," may also remember him as the lead designer of IBM's System/360, as an innovator in graphics and virtual reality, and as the founder of the University of North Carolina's computer science department. Brooks was born on April 19, 1931, in Greenville, North Carolina. He received his A.B. in Physics from Duke University in 1953. As a freshman, he saw an article in the January 23, 1950 issue of Time Magazine entitled "The Thinking Machine" that sparked his interest in computing.

Despite the challenges facing the wider manufacturing industry during the coronavirus pandemic, collaborative robots continue to attract attention and investment, due to their ease of use, redeployability, and convenience to end-users who struggle to afford more traditional forms of automation. According to a new report from global tech market advisory firm ABI Research, the cobot market is set to grow substantially over the coming decade. The market had a global valuation of $475 million in 2020, which will expand to $600 million in 2021 and $8 billion in 2030, with a projected annual growth of 32.5 percent. Rian Whitton, principal analyst at ABI Research, says: "The most direct benefit of cobots is not in their ability to collaborate with humans. "Rather, it is in their relative ease of use, improved interface, and the ability of end-users to redeploy them for different tasks." This has made cobots popular with small and medium-sized enterprises (SME's) which value flexibility and incremental automation where the maintenance cost is not prohibitive. Universal Robots is currently the dominant player in the market, with 50 percent of the total shipments and posting $219 revenue for 2020, but challengers like Fanuc, ABB, and others are beginning to catch up after initially lagging in the space. They have done this by improving user interface and the usability of their systems. Whitton says: "The barriers between cobots and standard industrial robots are beginning to breakdown, as many vendors are experimenting with dual-mode robots that can have a cobot and industrial mode.

Robot-related services powered by cloud computing will reach US$157.8 billion in annual revenue by 2030, according to new figures released by ABI Research. The analyst firm says despite being only in its nascent stages, the value of cloud infrastructure to robots is key for both deployment (encompassing development, configuration, and instalment) and operation (maintenance, analytics, and control). With the popularisation of mobile robotics in a wide range of verticals, it will become necessary to utilise the computing power of cloud infrastructure to store and manage the vast troves of collected data as well as to train more advanced algorithms used to power robot cognition, it says. "Since 1961, most commercial robots have been wired or tied to external infrastructure for movement. The next generation of robot deployments will be increasingly mobile, tied to cellular and WIFI connectivity, will consume vast troves of data in order to operate autonomously, and will need effective management through real-time measurements for performance, status and operability," explains Rian Whitton, senior analyst at ABI Research.

The EksoVest supports the wearer's arms during lifting. Millions of people Suffer from the effects of spinal cord injuries and strokes that have left them paralyzed. Millions more suffer from back pain, which makes movement painful. Exoskeletons are helping the paralyzed to walk again, enabling soldiers to carry heavy loads, and workers to lift heavy objects with greater ease. An exoskeleton is a mechanical device or soft material worn by a patient/operator, whose structure mirrors the skeletal structure of the operator's limbs (joints, muscles, etc.).

What's the most important thing for people to know about the full-body exoskeleton from Sarcos Robotics, which can turn an assembly-line worker into a superhero? "We're taking orders," says Sarcos CEO Ben Wolff. The company has been working on this wearable robotics technology since 2000, when engineers in its Salt Lake City headquarters began cobbling together experimental supersoldier suits for the U.S. military. A 2010 proto type, which enabled the wearer to punch through wooden boards, earned the nickname "the Iron Man suit" in homage to the high-tech gear in the eponymous comic book and movies. But that bulky version kept the user tethered to the wall by a power cord--something that would presumably interfere with superhero activities--and the suit remained in R&D.