It's started: Robot Uprising Begins as China Turns to Machines to Fill in Gaps in the Workforce

[sixth]

"reported People's Daily, the mouthpiece of China's Communist Party."

in a same manner, this article is a blow-out from the mouthpiece of a bla-bla-bla special interest party.

 

[Beast]

"reported People's Daily, the mouthpiece of China's Communist Party."

in a same manner, this article is a blow-out from the mouthpiece of a bla-bla-bla special interest party.

However, the cause seems to be human error, rather than the opening salvo in an apocalyptic robot uprising - the exhibitor controlling Xiao Pang hit the 'forward' button instead of 'reverse'.

Blow out by OP...

 

[onebyone]

 

[onebyone]

Panda

Watch: Panda prison break! Cubs make adorable attempt to escape

Let's take a look at how a dozen panda cubs made a cute and relentless effort to escape from their pen at a breeding center in southwestern China's Sichuan Province. Although their attempts were repeatedly foiled by the keeper, they never gave up, as they longed for the freedom of the outside world!

 

[TaiShang]

Chinese catering robots to test waters in Japan
(People's Daily Online) December 14, 2016

Pangolin-Robot, the largest catering robot manufacturer in China, will soon spread to Japan by cooperating with the University of Electro-Communications, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.

Kunshan-based Pangolin-Robot will set up an agency in Japan for marketing and sales as early as this month. In April 2017, the company will establish a research and development center at the university. CampusCreate, an institute affiliated with the University of Electro-Communications, will provide technological assistance for the project.

Huis Ten Bosch, a theme park in Nagasaki, Japan, is considering introducing such food service robots in the park, according to the report. The park's dining area has previously introduced greeting and cooking robots. The food service robot will be sold for 500,000 Japanese yen (about 30,000 RMB).

Pangolin-Robot accounts for roughly 70 percent of the catering robot market share, thanks to its sales network around China. It has also signed a cooperation memorandum with Hikuchi, which specializes in model-making and the robot business.

China emphasized the development of its robotics industry in a mid-term plan to upgrade manufacturing in 2015. As China has gradually put more effort into its robotics industry, Chinese enterprises are becoming more competent and competitive.

 

[ahojunk]

Intelligent robots offer information services in east China
2016-12-30 15:57 | Xinhua | Editor:Xu Shanshan

A staff shows ways to talk with an intelligent robot at Jinan West Railway Station in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province, Dec. 29, 2016. Three intelligent robots offered information services to passengers in the railway station. (Xinhua/Zhao Xiaoming)

A passenger asks for help from an intelligent robot at Jinan West Railway Station in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province, Dec. 29, 2016. Three intelligent robots offered information services to passengers in the railway station. (Xinhua/Zhao Xiaoming)

Photo taken on Dec. 29, 2016 shows an intelligent robot at Jinan West Railway Station in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province. Three intelligent robots offered information services to passengers in the railway station. (Xinhua/Zhao Xiaoming)

 

[TaiShang]

Baidu puts a Chinese spin on family robots
China Daily, January 7, 2017

A family robot at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang in November. [Photo/China Daily]


Chinese internet colossus Baidu is out to make a splash with "Little Fish", a family robot that is a voice-controlled virtual valet akin to Amazon Echo or Google Home.

Baidu showed off "Little Fish", a translation of its Chinese name Xiaoyu Zaijia, on Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas ahead of its release in China later this year.

"I think 2017 will be the year of conversational computing," Baidu chief scientist Andrew Ng said while demonstrating the robot. "We see a clear path of it changing everything."

Using the human voice to interact with computers that are able to essentially learn from experience was among the hot trends at the show. Arrays of device makers added digital aide capabilities with the help of Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant technology.

Unlike "faceless" Amazon Alexa or Google Home devices that rely on people asking for information or controlling devices by speaking, Little Fish also features a touch-screen on top of its orb-shaped base.

A camera on top tracks faces, and the screen swivels to keep facing a speaker.

"Speech is the fastest way for you to communicate with a computer, but a screen is a very fast way for a machine to communicate with you," Ng said.

For example, it would be quicker to glance at a requested list of top restaurants from Yelp than it would be to listen to the computer read all the names and descriptions, he said.

"Little Fish" uses Baidu's operating system DuerOS, which is already employed by other devices in China, such as set-top TV boxes that can switch channels by voice command or figure out names of actors on screen when asked.

"It will transform how you use devices in your home. There are plenty of business models," Ng said.

Baidu partnered with hardware firm Ainemo to build the second-generation device.

"We believe family robots will be the next big category that will be a member of everybody's home," Ainemo CEO Chenfeng Song said.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is getting a foothold in homes, with developers feverishly adding "skills" to Amazon Echo speakers infused with Alexa.

Google, meanwhile, is using its AI prowess in Android smartphones, messaging software, and a vase-sized Home digital assistant.

The home hubs, sometimes referred to as smart speakers, fetch content or answers from the internet, and can act as remote controls for other devices in houses.

Chinese tech giant Huawei said at the trade show that it is adding Amazon's Alexa to its flagship smartphone for its US launch. Lenovo announced it was launching a smart home assistant powered by Alexa, joining the growing roster of contenders in voice-activated devices.

Experts expect voice technology to quickly improve, within years perhaps even being able to recognize speakers so accurately it could be used for biometric security.

 

[Godman]

damn thats cute

 

[PïXëL]

It looks like LG hub

 

[Godman]

It looks like LG hub

I think this looks cuter, this much more human like

 

[onebyone]

Horgos: The First New City Of The New Silk Road Becomes A Hub For Robots

Wade Shepard ,
CONTRIBUTOR
I travel to emerging markets around Asia and report on what I find.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
JAN 9, 2017 @ 12:24 PM

In the spring of 2015 I found myself walking through the streets of Horgos, a place on the Chinese side of the China/ Kazakhstan border that has recently reemerged as the first new city of the New Silk Road. Although its history extends back to the Sui Dynasty (AD 581-618) and it was once a stop on the ancient Silk Road, the modern city of Horgos at that point wasn’t even a year old. The initial wave of construction was just getting going there, and the only thing the place really had was a struggling cross-border duty free zone, the full support of Beijing, and little else.

The big dream is for Horgos, a place that is being built up from a small village and some lavender fields, to become a major trade junction that would link together east and west, north and south along the New Silk Road — the emerging network of trade corridors, pipelines, logistics zones, and new cities stretching from East Asia to Europe. It took a couple of years to build the basic infrastructural framework of this place, but in 2017 companies are starting to notice and move in.

The road to the Kazakh border in Horgos. This is a part of the Western Europe-Western China Expressway, which goes from Lianyungang on the coast of China to St. Petersburg, Russia, and is a vital road corridor of the New Silk Road. Image: Wade Shepard.

Horgos is now being positioned to become a prime robot manufacturing and export hub. A company called Boshihao Electronics has moved a portion of their production from the high-tech empire of Shenzhen on China’s east coast all the way out to the country’s farthest western fringe.


Boshihao manufactures service robots — i.e. robots that can replace humans in professions such as cooking, nursing, banking, and education -- in addition to more standard ones that have industrial capabilities. Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a robot revolution in 2014, one year after he announced the Belt and Road initiative, which was to become the policy framework guiding China's participation along the New Silk Road. Boshihao manufacturing robots in Horgos combines both of the president’s ambitions.

The initial goal is to produce 10,000 robots per year in Horgos, which will be destined for export to Silk Road countries in Central Asia, Russia, and the Middle East. Production is to commence in May.


Why would a sophisticated Shenzhen tech company would move all the way out to the far side of Xinjiang — a place that could serve as the defacto definition of remote — to make robots?

It is Horgos’s unique geographic position that is the main draw here — the place really doesn’t have much else (if you don’t count the massive tax breaks and other government incentives to encourage companies to move here).

Horgos is a new city in the middle of nowhere — almost literally. The place sits a tick from the Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility, the farthest point on earth from an ocean, near the fabled region which Herodotus claimed to be inhabited by creatures that had the bodies of lions and the heads and wings of eagles, where the North Wind originated from a cave. Sitting right on the border of China and Kazakhstan, Horgos is out there, but it is precisely this remote location that’s now of essence about the place: the middle of nowhere is being turned into the center of the world.

 

[onebyone]

Directly on the other side of the border from Horgos is a place called Khorgos. It has essentially the same name, and, national sovereignty aside, is basically the same place. Both sides of the border are being built up in tandem to serve the same purpose: to become a major international trade hub linking China with the CIS, the Middle East, and Europe beyond. Trains would stop here from all sides of the Eurasian theater, exchange cargo, and deliver goods to anywhere on the continent in under two weeks.

However, being a great transshipment hub wasn’t the sole ambition of Horgos/ Khorgos. Growing manufacturing and warehousing industries were also in the plans. On the Kazakh side of the border is a 5,740 hectare special economic zone that is modeled off of the Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone in Dubai, and on the Chinese side is a vast amount of space earmarked for industrial use.

Although landlocked, this region is aiming to become China’s “west coast.” The vision is to grow Horgos into an industrial counterweight to balance out the booming cities of the east. If Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou could become catalysts of commerce largely due to being major sea ports then why couldn’t the land ports of the west experience a similar, albeit more diminutive, growth pattern? As production in China continues moving ever westward, it is making less and less sense to move products thousands of kilometers overland east just to load them onto ships to ultimately go west. So cities like Horgos and Kashgar are being transitioned into major logistical hubs, ports for trains and trucks rather than ships.

The dry port on the Horgos side of the border just opened last year, which enables local manufacturers to ship their products directly to Europe by train in roughly ten days at a fraction of the cost of air. Boshihao’s robots are precisely the type of cargo that these new trans-Eurasian rail routes are meant to carry. With a cost between $700 and $150,000 each, these robots are high-value merchandise which need to be shipped fast. Beyond that, their sheer weight can make air shipping cost prohibitive.


Boshihao also claims to be building a high-tech industrial park in Horgos in an effort to attract other companies involved in electronics R&D and production to China's western borderlands.

While it’s ultimately the modern incarnation of ancient trade routes, the New Silk Road is nothing if not high-tech. This is paradoxically in keeping with the trade network’s historic theme, as it was always high-value, highly-sought, luxury items that were being shipped overland between China and Europe along the Silk Road.

I'm the author of Ghost Cities of China. I'm currently traveling the New Silk Road doing research for a new book. Follow by RSS.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshe...k-road-becomes-a-hub-for-robots/#517b8fca6022

 

[Jlaw]

I'm the author of Ghost Cities of China. I'm currently traveling the New Silk Road doing research for a new book.

****, just wasted two minutes of my life on this. what's his new book going to be? Less People in Northwest China?
A White Ghost in Remote China?

 

[Shotgunner51]

It's started: Robot uprising begins as China turns to machines to fill in gaps in the workforce

• China is already the world's largest market for mechanical helpers
• The working age in the nation has continued to decline since 2012
• Its estimated China will account for 40 per cent of the robot market by 2019

By Sophie Williams For Mailonline
Published: 15:43 GMT, 12 January 2017 | Updated: 15:55 GMT, 12 January 2017

China is increasingly turning to machines to fill in gaps in its workforce. The country is already the world's largest market for mechanical helpers and is set to get bigger with estimations suggesting that by 2019, China will account for 40 percent of the global industrial robot market.

In 2012, the working age population in China fell for the first time and has been declining ever since.

People watch a robotic unit of the parking system developed by Hikvision work​

A robot arm belonging to Kuka is on display at the Hannover Fair in Germany​

One example where robots are being introduced in factories is at the Hikvision factory in Wuzhen.

Hikvision has been testing its robotic parking system as it struggles to recruit a large workforce as the number of cars on Chinese roads continues to rise. Wu Yonghai, the company's head of robotics said: 'The technolody and scale of the industry is still at a very early stage.'

'This is about finding a solution to the car parking problem.'

In the factory, the robots glide under stationary cars and ferry them to empty Chinese parking bays using space more efficiently and reducing driver stress.

Most firms in the sector focus on industrial robots rather than service robots, the kind which might sweep an apartment floor or act as a companion for elderly people.

The working age population which is defined as those from 15 to 59 fell for the first time in decades in 2012 and have declined ever since.

According to the International Federation of Robots which estimates China will account for 40 per cent of the global industrial robot market by 2019. Wang Hesheng, a professor of robotics at Shanghai Jiaotong University said: 'The country is facing lots of problems, one of which is an increase in labour costs.'

'At the entire state level, China takes the robotics strategy very seriously.'

President Xi Jinping has called on the nation's robot makes
to take a larger chunk of the market​

He also said that the government is heavily investing in robotics research. While Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on the nation's robot makers to take a larger chunk of the domestic market currently dominated by foreign players.

Despite China allowing couples to have a second child, the looming labour shortage will take decades to address.

On January 9, a Chinese humanoid robot held conversations with members of the press in Shanghai.

The realistic AI humanoid, which was unveiled last April, also made specific facial expressions when asked various questions, including whether or not she had a boyfriend. Her inventor predicted that within a decade or so, artificially intelligent (AI) robots like Jia Jia would begin performing a range of menial tasks in Chinese restaurants, nursing homes, hospitals and households.

Meet Jia Jia:
The humanoid robot was created by a team of engineers from the
University of Science and Technology of China.

Workforce of tomorrow:
Her inventor believes that artificially intelligent robots like Jia Jia herald a future of cyborg labour.​

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...egins-China-turns-machine-gaps-workforce.html

 

[ahojunk]

Robot Wars looks set to make a smash in China market
2017-01-13 09:11 | Xinhua | Editor: Gu Liping

Amateur robot enthusiasts in China will soon have a chance to send their creations into battle, as Robot Wars, the British TV show, looks set to come to China this year.

"We are looking to Chinese partners to exchange expertise and experience and explore the possibility of bringing our content to China and Chinese content abroad -- Robot Wars is definitely on top of that list," said Ron Jones, executive chairman of Tinopolis, a Britain-based production company.

In the show, "combat" robots, created by teams of engineers, university students, school teachers and hobbyists, are sent into an arena where they must avoid fire, spikes, pits, and the House Robots to be crowned the champion.

Robot Wars has been exported to over 90 countries across Europe, Africa and Asia, according to Ron Jones.

"[It has] great potential in the China market. This is why we are keen to work with local partners, who have a much clearer understanding of the market and can advise us on cultural and regulatory issues."

"We've met quite a few potential local partners here in China over the past week, and watched many Chinese reality shows," said Arwel Rees, chief executive of Tinopolis. "Though the language is hard to penetrate, the techniques are impressive."

Tinopolis produces more than 2,500 hours of factual, entertainment, sport, drama and digital media content for broadcast television. Many productions are already available in China, including Worst Driver with SMG New Media's online video platform and Extreme Sailing on LeTV.