Cutting Edge

Strawberry fields will forever be changed by robots that can automatically identify and pick ripe berries, according to Japanese researchers.

Developed by the minds at an organization aptly abbreviated IAM-BRAIN (that's the Institute of Agricultural Machinery's Bio-oriented Technology Research Advancement Institution), the machines can harvest more than 60 percent of a strawberry crop.

Even though each machine takes nine seconds to pick a strawberry, they can cut harvesting time from 500 hours to 300 hours for a 1,000-square-meter field (about a quarter-acre), BRAIN's Shigehiko Hayashi explains in the video below.

The robots can also pick strawberries at night. There's more video of the machine at work here, on BRAIN's Japanese page.

The berry bot has a stereo camera system that images the strawberries in 3D. Image-processing algorithms gauge their ripeness, and if a berry is at least 80 percent red, the machine neatly snips it at the stem and deposits it in a bin.

Japanese farmers are field-testing experimental versions of the robots and testing is expected to be complete by the end of the year. … Read more

China is turning out to be the new Japan, judging by all the cool tech stuff it's turning out, including, now, robot waiters. Sign of the times? At China's new Dalu Rebot (sic) restaurant in Jinan, patrons are greeted by two robot receptionists and attended by six robo-waiters (and no, they don't accept tips).

The brains behind the robot restaurant is the Shandong Dalu Science and Technology Company, which plans to roll out more robo-servers for the eatery, which can accommodate 100 diners at the same time. … Read more

If you like big and green, NASA's Ames Research Center will soon have something for you: the world's largest and greenest airship.

The space agency announced today that the Mountain View, Calif., research center's Moffett Field will soon play host to a mammoth 265-foot-long and 65-foot-diameter airship from Kellyton, Ala.'s E-Green Technologies. The Bullet Class 580 will be developed and tested at Ames in 24,000 square feet of Ames' famous Hangar 2.

The new airship, which has a planned first flight date of early 2011, is expected to run on algae-based biofuel, and fly at … Read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL--A commercially developed rocket critical to the long-term health of the International Space Station blasted off today on a long-awaited test flight, boosting an untried cargo craft into orbit for a successful maiden flight, which the company's founder described as "mind-blowingly awesome."

Operating autonomously, the Dragon carried out a pre-planned set of maneuvers during two orbits to mimic critical phases of a rendezvous with the International Space Station and to exercise its 18 thrusters, its power system, and its navigation and control equipment and software.

It then carried out a de-orbit rocket firing and … Read more

Sure, we've got robots programmed to make cars, vacuum our floors, and even make sweet, sweet love, and on some level I'm frightened of all of them. But there's a new beasty that will haunt my dreams tonight: the multijoint pork de-boning robot.

It's an articulated arm with a razor-sharp knife at the end. It's called the HAMDAS-R, and it's made by Japan's Mayekawa Electric. The thing is programmed with one purpose: separating pork flesh from thigh bone, a task that's supposed to be tough for humans.

It just won the top prize in the small business and venture category at the 4th Robot Awards sponsored by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry.

This HAMDAS-R system has achieved a higher yield of deboned pork than skilled workers do, according to Mayekawa. It's smart enough to change its instructions on-the-fly to account for different meat forms and bone sizes, which means it autonomously learns the best way to cut up formerly living things. That means it could very easily make work of a human, like me, even if it's never been programmed to. See why I'm so scared? … Read more

Canadian firm BioLytical received FDA approval this week for the sale of its Insti HIV Rapid Antibody Test in the United States.

The test, which, at 60 seconds, will be the fastest-working on the U.S. market (others tend to take between 10 minutes and 20 minutes) is already available in more than 50 countries. In Canada's Ontario province, the kits have been available since they were first commercialized in 2006, and in British Columbia, where BioLytical is based, health authorities plan to use them for the new $48 million pilot project called Seek and Treat for the prevention … Read more

The X-37B, an unmanned U.S. Air Force space plane whose mystery mission set off a round of speculation over the spring and summer, returned to Earth early this morning after its maiden flight lasted 220 days in orbit.

The space plane landed at 1:16 a.m. PT today at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, officially making it the U.S.'s first unmanned vehicle to return from space and land on its own, according to Boeing, which designed the craft. Launched in April from Cape Canaveral by an Atlas 5 rocket, the X-37B was designed to stay … Read more

LEXINGTON, Mass.--Energy Secretary Steven Chu toured tiny solar company 1366 Technologies here today, holding it up as an example of success in the ARPA-E program and the importance of federal funding for energy research.

Chu toured the labs of 1366 Technologies, a company spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008 to bring the price of solar power down to the price of coal, after briefing incoming members of Congress at the Harvard Kennedy School of government in nearby Cambridge.

1366 Technologies received a $4 million grant from the ARPA-E program, which enabled it to attract private capital … Read more

NASA scientists have discovered a new type of bacteria that is able to substitute arsenic--a poison to most living creatures--as a biological building block, something no other known life form on Earth can do, the agency said today.

In a press conference held at NASA's Washington D.C. headquarters, scientists announced that they had discovered a new form of bacteria, known as GFAJ-1, in California's Mono Lake that has DNA completely foreign to anything ever before found on Earth. It has the ability to substitute arsenic at the DNA level for phosphorus.

That would distinguish it from every … Read more