Getting a robot to perform surgery on you might sound like a good idea, especially when you have the kind of medical technology at your disposal, such as the one seen in the movie Prometheus. Well, that works only when everything in said robot works well, coupled with fantastic artificial intelligence to assess the medical situation and perform all of the right moves. Robotic arms lack the nerves that might happen to some surgeons, but there is a risk of it breaking down halfway.
Case in point, surgeons in Aalst, Belgium were obviously startled when part of the da Vinci surgery robot’s arm actually broke off while it remained within a patient who was undergoing prostate surgery, although this happened half a dozen years back. Intuitive Surgical, Inc., the one behind the da Vinci robot arm, has been slapped by a rash of lawsuits for some time now, and their position is further weakened after Columbia University researchers ran a recent study to discover that robotic surgery does not offer any real advantages over live surgeons, as long as the latter have received proper instruments and training.
There are several other alleged complications that arose from the da Vinci machines, where among them include punctures to the liver and spleen during heart surgery, rectal damage during prostate surgery, unintended burns from the device’s cauterizing tools and vaginal hernias following hysterectomies. The poor patient in the Belgian case had to endure an enlarged wound to retrieve the broken arm, since the fracture of the robotic arm was too large for it to be pulled back through the original keyhole incision. Ouch!
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Germ-Killing Robot, Disabled Cat Gets Wheelie Legs From Student Robot Club , 
What would be the next evolutionary step when it comes to supply delivery? Well, cellphones and smartphones have more or less made us take wireless connectivity for granted, and Paola Santana is one who figured out that flying drones could very well handle all delivery tasks in the future, which means highways and roads would see far less bikes and delivery trucks, as these drones would take to the skies to get the job done.
I am not quite sure about you, but when was the last time you saw a vacancy in the newspapers that looked for someone whose job was to clean solar panels, and solar panels alone? That does sound rather repetitive and mundane, and there won’t be too much interaction, not to mention it being rather hot assuming you were to work the normal shift hours that most of the other people put in. I guess for stuff like this, it would be far better to engage the services of a robot. After all, robots basically do not tire out (other than requiring its batteries to remain juiced), and neither do business owners have to worry about things like unions, strikes, a salary scale and all that jazz.
Pigeons might sound cute with all of their cooing, but they do make quite a mess with their droppings, which is why Network Rail has decided to spend a good £9,000 of their budget to purchase robot falcons in order to give them pigeons a scare away from city’s main train station, which is Waverley Station in Edinburgh. Known as Robop, this robotic falcon is capable of rotating its head, flap its wings, and also emit the kind of screeching noises that pigeons hate, somewhat akin to the Nazguls’ screams when riding on their fell beast.
Robots do seem to be doing their bit in elbowing their way into our lives, and in the case of this particular jeans store which proved to be a dream of a previous Amazon executive, he has decided to employ the help of robots to assist men that drop by his store locate the correct jeans size. After all, do you agree that most men tend to bulge around the waist from a certain age onwards (or after marriage)? Having said that, you might not fit into that pair of 32″ Levis any more, and the robot would assist you kindly. The store is located in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, where designer jeans will hang from metal racks that are attached to the ceiling, making the QR code tags easily accessible.