Category: Industrial

Our ability to pay attention to tasks — a key component of our everyday lives — is heavily influenced by factors like motivation, arousal and alertness. Maintaining focus can be especially challenging when the task is boring or repetitive. “In many activities, it is difficult to maintain a high level of focus over time. Our…

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. Humanoids 2023: 12–14 December 2023, AUSTIN, TEX. Cybathlon Challenges: 02 February 2024, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND Eurobot…

Most people probably think of robots as cold and calculating, but for Morgan Pope they can be a tool for generating emotions. As a research scientist at Disney Research in Glendale, Calif., Pope designs robots for the entertainment giant’s theme parks. But working as an Imagineer, as Disney’s researchers are known, requires both in-depth knowledge…

This study examined the association between work performance and lifestyle habits among Japanese employees. The results revealed that insufficient sleep was the predominant factor affecting work performance in men and women, followed by lack of regular exercise and eating late-evening meals. Furthermore, the study indicated that men were more likely to exhibit lifestyle habits that…

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. Humanoids 2023: 12–14 December 2023, AUSTIN, TEX. Cybathlon Challenges: 02 February 2024, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND Eurobot…

A skeletal robotic hand with working ligaments and tendons can now be 3D-printed in one run. The creepy accomplishment was made possible by a new approach to additive manufacturing that can print both rigid and elastic materials at the same time in high resolution. The new work is the result of a collaboration between researchers…

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the increase in virtual interactions has created a new challenge: fatigue caused by video calls, also known as Zoom fatigue or videoconference fatigue. This exhaustion, characterized by a feeling of tiredness and alienation due to too long or inappropriate video-based communication, had previously only been investigated through surveys and self-assessments by…

People in many parts of the United States possess few chances for the robust community engagement that underpins healthy democracies, according to a new report that for the first time maps civic opportunity across the country. The heat map created by Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute, reveals patterns of inequality in civic opportunity tied…

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. IEEE SSRR 2023: 13–15 November 2023, FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN Humanoids 2023: 12–14 December 2023, AUSTIN, TEXAS,…

Although robots are already in warehouses, shuffling small items between bins for shipping or storage, they have yet to take over the job of lugging big, heavy things. And that’s just where they could be of the most use, because lugging is hard for people to do. Several companies are working on the problem, and…