This may worth something:
As Workers Spread Out to Halt the Virus, Robots Fill the Gaps | WIRED
As the coronavirus began to spread through Japan in March, workers at a warehouse in Sugito that processes millions of personal care products each day were overrun by a spike in demand for masks, gloves, soap, and hand sanitizer.
"We have to consider more automation, more use of robotics, in order for people to be spaced apart," says Shohei Matsumoto, deputy general manager of the company's R&D division. "There are going to be fewer opportunities for humans to touch the items."
SoftBank-Backed Robotics Firm Brain Raises $36 Million For Expansion Beyond Autonomous Scrubbers
Brain Corp., a SoftBank-backed firm that makes autonomous systems for cleaning robots, raised $36 million today for further expansion in retail, healthcare, airports, schools and others on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis. The new funding, led again by SoftBank with participation from ClearBridge Investments, Satwik Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures, brings the firm's total investment to $150 million.
"You always hear about sexy robots. I always say a sexy robot is a lousy business. We want the boring robots that actually solve problems, and now it's become more important because of COVID-19," Eugene Izhikevich, Brain's cofounder and CEO, tells Forbes. "Robots don't sneeze, they don't cough and they don't have fevers."
This robot vacuum solves the Roomba's biggest problem: Getting stuck - CNET
That, according to Ecovacs, is possible because of the T8's sophisticated navigation system. It relies on information collected from lasers and collision and cliff sensors, plus an onboard HD video camera. More importantly, the robot has the intelligence to tie all this data together, then interpret what it sees.
So if there's a pile of dirty clothes on the floor, the T8 will circumvent it. The same goes for shoes, wires and cords, area rugs and oddly designed chairs. At least that's the theory. And I have to say, right now, a brainy cleaning robot sure sounds tempting.
And here's another article:
Coronavirus: South Bay company uses delivery robots to help health care workers battle COVID-19 -
Robots, AI, and the road to a fully autonomous construction industry | VentureBeat
Built Robotics executives are fond of saying that their autonomous system for construction equipment, like dozers and excavators, might be further along than many autonomous vehicles. In fact, CEO Noah Ready-Campbell insists you'll see autonomous vehicles in controlled industrial environments — like construction sites — before you see level 5 driverless cars on public roads.
"There's a quote that 'Cold fusion is 20 years in the future and always will be,'" Ready-Campbell told VentureBeat. "I think there's a chance that that might be true for level 5 self-driving cars as well."
The Boston Dynamics Coronavirus Doctor Robot Dog Will See You Now | WIRED
A huge part of that is studying how people are reacting to the machines, a field known as human-robot interaction. It's highly unlikely that robots will ever completely replace doctors and nurses, not because the technology won't get there, but because we won't want it to. So much of a medical professional's job is interacting with patients, comforting them and walking them through difficult decisions. A robot cannot understand these complexities.
Spot's foray into emergency telemedicine may be one of the stranger outcomes of the Covid-19 crisis so far, but in some ways perhaps it isn't surprising. "The unfortunate truth is crisis situations have always pushed technology forward, whether it's in war or pandemics," Carpenter says. "Robots are great at doing things we don't want to do, are dangerous for us to do, or when they can do something better than we could."
The pandemic is bringing us closer to our robot takeout future | Ars Technica
On the morning of March 30, I set out from my home in Washington, DC, to the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. In only a few hours, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Virginia Governor Ralph Northam would issue coordinated stay-at-home orders. But I was going to GMU's campus to check out a new technology seemingly tailor-made for the moment—technology that could help people get food without the risks of face-to-face interactions.
Campus was eerily quiet; most students and staff had long been sent home. But as I approached a Starbucks at the northern edge of GMU, I heard a faint buzzing and saw a six-wheeled, microwave-sized robot zip along the sidewalk, turn, and park in front of the coffee shop. The robot looked like—and essentially was—a large white cooler on wheels. It was a delivery robot from Starship, a startup that has been operating on campus since early last year .
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