``A simple handshake would give them away''. This is how Anthony Hopkins' fictional character, Dr Robert Ford, summarises a particular flaw of the 2016 science-fiction \emph{Westworld}'s hosts. In the storyline, Westworld is a futuristic theme park and the hosts are autonomous robots engineered to be indistinguishable from the human guests, except for their hands that have not been perfected yet. In another classic science-fiction saga, scientists unlock the secrets of full synthetic intelligence, Skynet, by reverse engineering a futuristic hand. In both storylines, reality inspires fiction on one crucial point: designing hands and reproducing robust and reliable manipulation actions is one of the biggest challenges in robotics. Solving this problem would lead us to a new, improved era of autonomy. A century ago, the third industrial revolution brought robots into the assembly lines, changing our way of working forever. The next revolution has already started by bringing us artificial intelligence (AI) assistants, enhancing our quality of life in our jobs and everyday lives--even combating worldwide pandemics.

Walmart (WMT) is in the early stages of testing a kitchen robot assistant named "Flippy" at its Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters to see whether or not it's the right fit for its in-store delis. Flippy is the world's first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant powered by artificial intelligence from Miso Robotics, a two-year-old startup. The robot made headlines a year ago debuting as the burger-flipping robot at a CaliBurger franchise in Pasadena. More recently, Flippy got a gig at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles with vending food service company Levy Restaurants, part of Compass Group, to fry up chicken tenders and tater tots. "Walmart saw what we were doing and said, 'Could you bring Flippy from Dodgers Stadium to our Culinary Institute?'"

This hamburger-flipping robot was so popular when it debuted, it couldn't keep up with demand. Now Flippy is back and even better than before, as USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham shows us in Talking Tech. LOS ANGELES -- Flippy, the burger flipping robot, has a new gig cooking fried chicken tenders and tater tots at Dodger Stadium. The robot debuted earlier this year at a Pasadena, Calif. It's since been retooled and is now working full time, processing "thousands" of burgers daily, from 11 a.m.

This hamburger-flipping robot was so popular when it debuted, it couldn't keep up with demand. Now Flippy is back and even better than before, as USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham shows us in Talking Tech. After a rocky debut in March that only lasted one day, Flippy, the hamburger-flipping robot, is back in action at the Caliburger restaurant here in the heart of this Los Angeles suburb. "Now he moves like a ninja and is more reliable," says David Zito, the CEO of Miso Robotics, which created Flippy. Miso had convinced Caliburger that a $100,000 robot could take the place of short-order cooks, who often quit after just working a few weeks because it's so hot in the kitchen. With automated flipping of burgers, there was no break time and customers could get their orders consistently, working side by side with humans who prepared the patties and assembled them after cooking into buns.

Come one, come all: Come see the first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant in action at the CaliBurger kitchen. Flippy is set to make its public debut flipping and assembling burger patties alongside staff at the Pasadena fast food chain. In an effort to augment commercial kitchen operations with advanced technology, Miso Robotics developed a cloud-connected learning platform to power industrial robotic arms. Miso AI combines 3D, thermal, and regular vision to detect when raw burgers are placed on the grill, then monitors each in real-time. The program displays cooking times and alerts workers when to dress a sandwich.

What happens when you take a perfectly good neural network and, figuratively, stick a screwdriver in its brain? You get melancholy glitch-art music videos that turn talking heads into digital puppets. A machine learning developer named Jeff Zito made a series of music videos using a deep learning network based on Face2Face. Originally developed to generate stunningly realistic image transfers, like controlling a digital Obama in real-time using your own facial movements, this project takes it in a different direction. When it comes to art, for example, computations and algorithms often don't matter as much as chaos and noise do.

Flippy the robot is starting its culinary career with one simple task, but just like any rookie, it is learning on the job. With some practice and training, Flippy will be able to do everything from chopping vegetables to plating meals like a pro. Miso Robotics created the robot, which debuted in a kitchen at the restaurant chain CaliBurger in Pasadena this week. "Flippy will initially only focus on flipping burgers and placing them on buns," David Zito, CEO of Miso Robotics tells ZDNet. He adds, "But since Flippy is powered by our own cooking AI software, it will continuously learn from its experiences to improve and adapt over time. This means Flippy will learn to take on additional tasks including grilling chicken, bacon, onions, and buns in addition to frying, prepping, and finishing plates. Eventually, Flippy will support CaliBurger's entire menu."

It's never been a particularly sought-after job but now flipping burgers may not be a job for humans at all. Meet Flippy, a new "robotic kitchen assistant" from Miso Robotics that, as its name suggests, will automate the process of cooking those juicy patties. As Miso Robotics CEO and co-founder David Zito told TechCrunch, "We focus on using AI and automation to solve the high pain points in restaurants and food prep. That's the dull, dirty and dangerous work around the grill, the fryer, and other prep work like chopping onions. The idea is to help restaurants improve food quality and safety without requiring a major kitchen redesign."

Flippy was developed by Miso Robotics and CaliBurger's owner, Cali Group. It uses cameras, sensors and deep learning software to locate ingredients in a kitchen without needing to reconfigure existing equipment. Not only does it position and flip the patties, it tracks their temperature and cooking time too. When the burgers are done, it alerts a human cook, who applies the cheese and other toppings. "Much like self-driving vehicles, our system continuously learns from its experiences to improve over time," said David Zito, CEO of Miso Robotics, in a statement.

Flipping burgers is a hot and greasy job. Slips, trips, burns and cuts are common hazards associated with the work. But global demand for burgers is tremendous. Top burger chains racked up more than $75.5 billion in annual sales in 2016. To help keep human cooks out of harm's way while fulfilling our collective appetite for burgers, Pasadena-based Miso Robotics is rolling out a new "robotic kitchen assistant" called Flippy.