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The Fourth Industrial Revolution will certainly see some manufacturing roles become redundant, due to new technology like robotics and artificial intelligence, but in the long run this technology will likely create more jobs than it replaces, says Paul Wellener – Deloitte vice chairman and US industrial products & construction leader. A Deloitte study predicts the te...

Originally designed for small businesses, their solution could also find applications at home, where the number of connected objects is exploding. We spoke with the CEO David Legeay. The story starts with David Legeay’s observation of the difficulty of cybersecurity for small businesses. In 2015, he was working as the CIO of a large company when he realized that...

Speaking at the EMEA Digital Identity Summit 2019 in London a couple of weeks ago, they outlined how a cross-industry, global digital identity network could benefit those operating within any virtual marketplace. Hosted by ThreatMetrix, a LexisNexis Risk Solutions company, the event focused on enabling seamless, safe digital business by authenticating customers i...

According to Ericsson, the Swedish telecom company whose infrastructure will enable some of this rollout, there will be over 1.5 billion 5G users by 2024. But are 5G networks safe to human health? The new networking standard is not just about quicker downloads and seamless streaming. Faster speeds (10 times faster than 4G LTE) and lower latency will enable everyt...

“The global mobile telecoms industry generates $3.9 trillion in economic value. If we were a country, we would replace Germany as the fourth biggest economy in the world,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA in his keynote speech at MWC Barcelona 2019. “That sounds like good news, but it means we have a lot of responsibilities too. Mobile voice calls, data, v...

China’s role, already pivotal in such growth, is set to become increasingly dominant. On the occasion of the Mobile World Congress starting this week in Shanghai, DirectIndustry e-magazine reviews the situation in China. As the world’s largest producer of consumer electronics, China is home to the most extensive electronics manufacturing ecosystem and supply ...

Unlike a robot in a factory or laboratory, social robots are designed to interact with the general public. They’re beginning to appear in public spaces and have a wide range of potential applications, from handling the information desk in a busy airport to assisting teachers in a classroom and working with the elderly. The need to interact with people who have likely ...

Industrial robots began life as hefty mechanical arms that could spot-weld cars faster than human workers. But today’s robots have developed a delicate touch, along with the intelligence to handle more challenging tasks. Autonomous Robots Watching out for Co-Workers In the United States alone, a worker is killed in a forklift-related accident every three business d...

Mark Gray, area sales manager in the UK and Northern Ireland for Universal Robots, says the original concept of the “cobot” was to make robots for smaller outfits. These companies would traditionally have found robots too expensive and would not have had the required specialist skills to use them. Cobots have now been adopted by larger organizations too and are pre...

Boosting efficiency and production output in areas such as predictive maintenance and repair, defect detection and the optimization of supply chains, they are also starting to impact automated systems. In an increasingly digitized and hyper-connected world, almost every company generates and collects data. Ever more sophisticated machine learning (ML) algorithms ...

He has just published his Practical Guide to Artificial Intelligence in Businesses (Guide pratique de l’intelligence artificielle en entreprise Ed. Eyrolles, 2019). A guide in which he demystifies AI and gives it a more pragmatic future. The deployment of AI solutions in companies, he warns, is a necessity because AI is a revolution that affects all professions. We met w...

Yoav Degani, founder and CEO, explains the technology can be employed to predict a calling customer’s buying preferences, for example. We can not only show that a call is positive or negative, but we can reveal a much more sophisticated pattern. We can predict or assess if someone tends to take risks and guide the agent on whether they might purchase and, if so, what ...

Whether it is described as a miracle solution to treat genetic diseases or a powerful tool to augment humans and create a more resistant human kind, CRISPR-Cas9 has become a wonderful field of research for the scientific community. One that involves AI. Richard Sherwood, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Harvard Medical School (Boston) cr...

This biochip allows them to enter their office, gym or home or unlock their computer or smartphone by simply waving their hand in front of it. Hannes Sjöblad is a biohacker who has been biochipped. It has helped me get rid of five cards – I access my office, my gym, I have my business contacts on it so anyone can swipe me and get my details, I use it when I travel ...

Despite AI’s wide-ranging potential benefits, however, many are concerned that Europe is losing out in the AI development race, as both the United States and China pour huge sums into research and start-up funding. According to a recent report from PwC, China will see its total GDP boosted by over 26% by implementing AI between now and 2030. Europe, by contrast, ...

The industrial robotics market is expected to grow by 175% over the next decade, according to Loup Ventures research, and the primary focus of that growth will be on assistive platforms. A third of industrial robots sold by 2025 will be collaborative “cobots”, designed to work safely alongside humans in factories and plants. Cobots allow manufacturers to leverage the ...

The company recently announced they would be investing in the Hive, a Silicon Valley incubator focused on AI applications for industrial automation. DirectIndustry e-magazine interviewed Michel Huy, Director of Information Software and Processes for Rockwell Automation. DirectIndustry e-magazine: Why is Rockwell turning towards AI? Michel HUY: We decided to invest...

Their goal? To create an “augmented worker” who can focus on the most interesting and valuable tasks while the machine handles the easiest cases where a high level of expertise is not required. The idea is to create a system that enables the semi-automation of repetitive and visual tasks with a human ultimately remaining at the helm of the project. Célia Sampol, Editor-i...

DirectIndustry e-mgazine: Why do you think France is not yet ready for electric cars? Luis LE MOYNE: First of all, we are far from being the worst in Europe. We are clearly behind the Nordic countries. Countries where electricity is renewable and cheap have had a strong interest in switching to autonomous vehicles for a long time. In France, electricity and the nature...

An absolutely essential requirement to making it possible for on-road vehicles to possess a fully autonomous self-driving capability is that they be made aware of everything around them – people, other cars, road layouts – as quickly and easily as a human driver. RoboSense and the new LiDAR This requires the appropriate sensing technology, which RoboSense believes ...

Yet a growing sense of the remaining hurdles that need to be overcome by driverless tech developers – coupled with a series of fatal accidents involving self-driving cars – has eroded confidence and exposed the bold claims of some companies as ungrounded hype. Autonomous car technology is already being developed by the likes of Nissan, Byton, Mercedes and, of course,...

With an ever-increasing number of businesses now employing cognitive technologies, experts predict the global economy could see a contribution of $15.7 trillion from AI by 2030. Yet despite this potential, today many companies would benefit from a better understanding of AI and its capabilities as they look to reshape their day-to-day operations. The commercial integr...

With an ever-increasing number of businesses now employing cognitive technologies, experts predict the global economy could see a contribution of $15.7 trillion from AI by 2030. Yet despite this potential, today many companies would benefit from a better understanding of AI and its capabilities as they look to reshape their day-to-day operations. The commercial integr...

Today, as robotic systems become smarter, cheaper and more flexible – driven by trends in simplification, collaboration and digitalization – they are becoming indispensable across a wide range of industrial sectors. Andra Keay is Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics. He reckons that, Demand for industrial robotics is currently increasing faster than an...

The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) bought the equipment, which is the largest in the country, to enhance its cutting-edge collection for the manufacture of automotive and aerospace components. Chris McHugh, Dry Fiber Development Manager at AMRC, explains that the six-meter diameter, triaxial braiding system, manufactured by Herzo...

The global industrial robotics market share is booming, now accounting for more than 50 percent of the total robot market according to the International Federation of Robotics. It forecasts that in 2020 the global annual sales volume of industrial robots will increase to $23.18 billion, up from to $16.82 billion in 2017. 1. The Rise of Cobots Human-machine collabor...

The best part? The company has lined up various top automotive brands to adapt its technology to preferred hot rides. January 8, 2019⸻CES Innovations Award honoree, for safer autonomous car technology, RoboSense presented its RS-LiDAR-M1 in the form of an autonomous vehicle with a ‘Gaze’ function that acts similar to human eyes, but with a 200-meter detection. The veh...

ABB designed sensors that makes motors smarter, explains Thomas Schmidt, product manager. What’s interesting is that it’s really small. And for a small amount of money, you can get basic operational data like temperature, magnetic field and vibrations. The data is sent quickly and wirelessly via Bluetooth to a smartphone app. That helps maintenance teams react quickly...

Here is more proof: the exceptional growth of data-driven sensors and the increase in the use of mobile devices in plant operations. Industry believes in the Internet of Things, it invested $183 billion last year. Countries are not to be outdone, France has listed connected objects as one of the 34 priorities of its industrial policy. By Frédéric Aguilar, Technical Di...

Today almost all enterprises use digital technology in some way or another. But the development of true “digital enterprises”, where digital technology lies at the heart of how the business operates, generates revenue, seizes competitive advantage and produces value, is now an increasingly ubiquitous and disruptive feature of Industry 4.0. Advancing technology...

Today almost all enterprises use digital technology in some way or another. But the development of true “digital enterprises”, where digital technology lies at the heart of how the business operates, generates revenue, seizes competitive advantage and produces value, is now an increasingly ubiquitous and disruptive feature of Industry 4.0. Advancing technology...

Christopher Haug, Manager of International Press Relations, says the company is showcasing engineering and solution packages for electric drive technology, plus digitalization and connectivity options in hardware and software, from the workpiece to the cloud. We are showing some of the first IoT products we have on the market, such as Smartenance, a software programme...

We spoke with Gérard Gousset, Marketing Manager for machining systems with Italian industrial automation company Comau. The basic concepts of machine tooling come from the earliest days of the industrial revolution, each designed to handle a different task in the mass production process. As we enter the disruptive age of Industry 4.0, these tasks are being combi...

Andreas Chrysanthou, Professor in Materials Engineering, University of Hertfordshire, carried out research into the manufacture of diamond drills and bandsaws, which has led to improvements in the cutting performance of the tools. He explains: Diamond is the hardest material – so it can last a long time and diamond tools can cut harder materials like alumina, silicon ...

Japanese manufacturing products, particularly in the electronics and automotive sectors, remain world leaders. Japan is a country with advanced technological expertise, a formidable manufacturing base, world-class infrastructure, and a large and affluent consumer market. Yet today Japanese industry faces mounting population pressures, increased global competition and ...

MACHINING IS GOING DIGITAL Masahiko Mori, DMG MORI CEO, declared that they were going to develop digital products for machining applications. He said the company will soon start commercializing its WERKBLiQ solution, a predictive maintenance system that was designed by a German start-up that DMG MORI recently acquired. The solution involves smart sensors and artificia...