The snake-like robot can now slither its way underwater, allowing the modular robotics platform to inspect ships, submarines and infrastructure for damage.

Electrical Vertical Take-off and Landing aircraft (eVTOL) are moving from science fiction to reality, enabled by rapid advancements in electric motor, battery, and computing technology, the new report from IDTechEx, "Air Taxis: Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing Aircraft 2021-2041", finds.

Neuralink is developing a fully-implanted, wireless, high-channel count brain-machine interface with the goal of enabling people with paralysis to directly use their neural activity to operate computers and mobile devices with speed and ease.

Brain-computer interfaces are an emerging assistive technology, enabling people with paralysis to type on computer screens or manipulate robotic prostheses just by thinking about moving their own bodies. For years, investigational BCIs used in clinical trials have required cables to connect the sensing array in the brain to computers that decode the signals and use them to drive external devices.

Inside an Amazon facility, employees and robot work together to ready products for customers. On one side of the building, yellow tote bins bearing partially completed orders, ride down a conveyor. At the end of the conveyor, a robot arm called a palletizer/depalletizer stacks them on a pallet as if playing a three-dimensional game of Tetris.

Last year, a team of biologists and computer scientists created novel, tiny self-healing biological machines from frog cells called "Xenobots" that could move around, push a payload, and even exhibit collective behavior in the presence of a swarm of other Xenobots. The same team has now created life forms that self-assemble a body from single cells, do not require muscle cells to move, and even demonstrate the capability of recordable memory.

Over the next few months, NavyX will carry on its work with Uncrewed Surface Vessel, while also examining how these vessels can deliver across the range of military operations including surveillance and force protection.

In recent years there have been exciting breakthroughs in wearable technologies, like smartwatches that can monitor your breathing and blood oxygen levels. But what about a wearable that can detect how you move as you do a physical activity or play a sport, and could potentially even offer feedback on how to improve your technique?

Teijin Limited together with Applied Electric Vehicles has developed a highly energy-efficient low- speed electric vehicle prototype for autonomous driving systems and other mobility applications that are expected to help realize zero-emission mobility.

While technologies are emerging for cities to be independent in food, water and energy, safe and pleasant, progress is mostly poor and global warming threatens migrants overwhelming cities. By all means, let us see the smart city advances take place that are in the IDTechEx report, "Smart Cities Market 2021-2041: Energy, Food, Water, Materials, Transportation Forecasts", but it would be prudent to try to reverse the move to cities that the UN and others see resulting in 70-80% of us in them by 2050.

Engineers have developed an electronics-free, entirely soft robot shaped like a dragonfly that can skim across water and react to environmental conditions such as pH, temperature or the presence of oil. The proof-of-principle demonstration could be the precursor to more advanced, autonomous, long-range environmental sentinels for monitoring a wide range of potential telltale signs of problems.

Join the IDTechEx webinar Wednesday 31 March 2021 - An introduction to urban air mobility and air taxi services; The basics of eVTOL aircraft design architectures; Background into ongoing eVTOL projects for passenger transportation; and much more!

Living tissue can heal itself from many injuries, but giving similar abilities to artificial systems, such as robots, has been extremely challenging. Now, researchers have developed small, swimming robots that can magnetically heal themselves on-the-fly after breaking into two or three pieces. The strategy could someday be used to make hardier devices for environmental or industrial clean up, the researchers say.

There are some tasks that traditional robots — the rigid and metallic kind — simply aren't cut out for. Soft-bodied robots, on the other hand, may be able to interact with people more safely or slip into tight spaces with ease.

We are looking for entrepreneurial, enthusiastic people to join IDTechEx to apply their technical knowledge. You will be involved with technology scouting, market research and consultancy in a rapidly growing, exciting, global firm.

The IDTechEx report, "Robot Shuttles and Autonomous Buses 2020-2040," predicted second-generation robot shuttles, and here they come - vectored traction and steering, smart windows, robotic fast charging, and solar bodywork, so 10-40% less charging is needed.

In the field of robotics, metals offer advantages like strength, durability, and electrical conductivity. But, they are heavy and rigid—properties that are undesirable in soft and flexible systems for wearable computing and human-machine interfaces.

EHang Holdings Limited and Giancarlo Zema Design Group have designed and will build an eco-sustainable vertiport in Italy. The vertiport will use green design and construction materials, and can generate energy to recharge the EH216 passenger-grade AAVs. Vertiports will play a significant role in the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) market and the new era of flight. When integrated into the existing transportation infrastructure, vertiports can serve as aerial hubs for tourists.

Market research companies of all sizes generally pitch the 2020 market for Internet of Things at $200-£500 billion. They cite the leading players as companies with around that in total sales! These companies have mostly been large for quite a while so have their traditional businesses collapsed and been replaced by this great new thing? There is no evidence for that. So what do the pundits say these massive sums consist of?