The Innovation Report
Ford Cutting 3,000 Corporate Jobs in Shift to EVs
Ford is cutting 3,000 white collar jobs as it prepares to shift from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles. Two thousand of the jobs are salaried positions and another 1,000 are contractors, Ford (F) said. Affected employees...
ISS Hosts a Surgical Robot in 2024
A tiny robot known as MIRA will be blasting off to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024 to perform simulated surgical procedures in microgravity. MIRA, or "Miniaturized in vivo Robotic Assistant," will fly to the International Space Station thanks...
With Soaring Temperatures and Extreme Weather Events, Ocean Data Has Never Been More Important
With life-threatening heat waves experienced around the globe and the hurricane season upon the US, access to ocean data has never been more critical. The ocean environment is a key driver of weather patterns on land. Unless we understand our oceans, the insights we...
VW, Mercedes-Benz Team Up with Canada in Battery Materials Push
German carmakers Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz struck battery materials cooperation agreements with mineral-rich Canada on Tuesday, intensifying efforts to secure access to lithium, nickel and cobalt. The move comes as automakers roll out their electric-vehicle...
European Hospitals Test Drones to Speed Delivery of Human Tissue
Belgian hospitals have begun testing a drone to save time delivering human tissue samples across city centres, between patients on the operating table and medical labs, a first in Europe. On Tuesday, a drone flown by a private contractor took off from an Antwerp...
Slippery Spot-Detecting Robots Could Prevent Workplace Falls
For as long as robots have existed, the fear of machines ousting humans for their jobs has persisted. But for this research project, West Virginia University engineers are deploying robots to help workers keep their jobs — by saving them from potential...
Urbanization Driving New Demand for Construction Robots
Construction is a dangerous, uncertain sector. New data suggests those are some of the factors driving an industry-wide embrace of automation technologies, especially robots. In fact, the market for construction robots is exploding, growing at a compound annual growth...
California to Triple Sale of EVs by 2026, Phase Out Gas Vehicles
California wants electric vehicle sales to triple in the next four years to 35% of all new car purchases, an aggressive target set as part of the goal to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars by the middle of the next decade. The California Air Resources Board’s...
When It Comes to Semi-Autonomous Driving Systems, It’s Tesla Versus Everyone Else
In the past few decades, we’ve gone from very basic adaptive cruise control systems to Level 3 autonomous driving. The latter will essentially drive the car for you without needing any input from behind the wheel. This level of assistance hasn’t yet hit the roads (at...
Helping AVs Navigate Tricky Highway Merges
If autonomous vehicles are ever going to achieve widespread adoption, we need to know they are capable of navigating complex traffic situations, such as merging into heavy traffic when lanes disappear on a highway. To that end, researchers from North Carolina State...
