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Accenture buys Canadian Eclipse Automation, provider of manufacturing automation and robotics solutions. With this acquisition Accenture will be able to offer automated production lines that combine cloud, data and artificial intelligence (AI).

Sony Group will develop sensors for autonomous vehicles that use 70% less electricity, helping to reduce autonomous systems’ use of power and extend the range of electric vehicles, reports Nikkei Asia.

Ecoppia has won the Top Product of the Year Award for their H4 robot in the elite Environment + Energy Leader Awards program. The autonomous H4 robotic cleaning solution addresses scalability and remote management for large scale solar PV sites. To further bolster the solution’s smart, effective, and safe features, the H4 introduces helix technology into PV cleaning.

At the Farnborough International Airshow Microsoft has announced Project AirSim, a platform running on Microsoft Azure to build, train and test autonomous aircraft through high-fidelity simulation. In realistic environments, AI models can run through millions of flights in seconds, learning how to react to countless variables much like they would in the physical world.

Processing hundreds of thousands to millions of documents can take a lot of time. Computers, however, are very capable of reading, understanding and processing documents. The Groningen-based firm Klippa develops specialised AI-based software to help companies automate administrative work, so that employees can focus on tasks that add more value and are more rewarding.

In a new concept video Lockheed Martin shows what it called Distributed Teams, consisting of a  manned fighter and unmanned dones. The technology is being developed by its famous innovation department, calles Skunk Works, and could be operational witin three years.

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 3% from 2021, according to the latest forecast by Gartner. While IT spending is expected to grow in 2022, it will be at a much slower pace than 2021 due to spending cutbacks on PCs, tablets and printers by consumers, causing spending on devices to shrink 5%.

In a new study published by Science Robotics, Columbia Engineering  researchers demonstrate how their robot created a kinematic model of itself, and then used its self-model to plan motion, reach goals, and avoid obstacles in a variety of situations. It even automatically recognized and then compensated for damage to its body.

The US Government has stated it believes Russia is trying to get “hundreds” of unmanned aerial vehicles, including weapons-capable drones, from Iran to use in the war in Ukraine.

Constellation Clearsight, provider of energy inspections, announced a long-term agreement with Voliro AG, a Swiss-based technology provider that specializes in developing advanced airborne robots for critical infrastructure inspection and maintenance.