Harmoniously weaving together the art of dance and the science of mechanical engineering, Huang Yi performs a man-machine dance duet with KUKA -- a robot he conceptualized and programmed -- set to stirring cello by Joshua Roman. — Ted Talks

But as Canadian Catholic News reported, some individuals were far from impressed with the 65-foot-long spider, which rises 18 feet when at rest and over 42 feet when in motion. Critics expressed their outrage on the archbishop Terrence Prendergast’s Facebook wall, with one woman reportedly describing Kumo as “disturbing, disappointing, and even shameful.” Others apparently referred to it as “demonic” and “sacrilegious.” — Hyperallergic

The future of U.S. homebuilding depends on more people like Cyndicy Yarborough, a 26-year-old former Wal-Mart clerk with no background in construction. — Bloomberg

One million brilliant white tiles clad the 65m-tall precast concrete roof [...] glazed ceramic tiles need to be hand-checked, or tapped, every five years by specialist engineers, who abseil down the roof “sails” looking for changes in their sound or appearance. Now, thanks to the combined efforts of the opera house, the Getty Foundation, the University of Sydney and the engineering and design group Arup, this expensive, vertigo- inducing process is a step closer to becoming a thing of the past. — theartnewspaper.com

In a robot-​​proof edu­ca­tion, we have to focus on what humans do that robots cannot do: think cre­atively, work with others, think about ethics. For instance, sup­pose a sce­nario where a self-​​driving car can either hit three people and hurt the pas­sen­gers, or save the pas­sen­gers but hit 10 people. What is it going to do? Who’s going to pro­gram that? Who’s going to decide? You. — North­eastern Pres­i­dent Joseph E. Aoun

These exponential advances, most notably in forms of artificial intelligence, will prove daunting for as long as we continue to insist upon employment as our primary source of income. The White House, in a stunning report to Congress this week, put the probability at 83 percent that a worker making less than $20 an hour in 2010 will eventually lose his job to a machine. Even workers making as much as $40 an hour face odds of 31 percent. — bostonglobe.com

Robots will take over the courtyard of London’s V&A Museum this summer to build a pavilion inspired by flying beetles.

The installation – designed by architect Achim Menges – features an undulating canopy of tightly woven carbon fibre cells, drawing on the shells of insects called elytra. Visitors will also be able to watch the robots in action over the course of the summer as they continue to add new sections to the evolving ‘Elytra Filament Pavilion’. — the Spaces

"Robots hate litter," reads a health and safety sign. "Please don't give them any more reasons to overthrow mankind." It's also fair to say that naming your robots makes the whole process of constructing cars vaguely ridiculous. "Wolverine and Iceman lift the cars to tramline two," our tour guide informs us with the zeal of a true believer, adding, as he did after virtually every sentence, that this is 'kind of amazing'. — wired.co.uk

Zurich-based architects and roboticists have created the In-situ Fabricator, an autonomous construction robot capable of laying bricks into pre-programmed structures. Designers at the Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication laboratory believe a future generation of the robot could be used widely on building sites. — Reuters

MX3D, a research and development startup company, will use robots to 3D print a pedestrian bridge across one of Amsterdam’s canals. The versatile six-axis robotic arms will ‘draw’ steel structures in 3D, starting from one side of the canal and building across until it reaches the other end. The robot will also print its own support, which allows it to work autonomously. The location of the bridge will be announced soon and construction is set to commence in 2017. — iflscience.com

Mock-ups of the so-called ‘crabots’ are featured in lengthy planning documents submitted to the City of Mountain View Council in Silicon Valley [...]

‘Our objective is to create a solution that can be assembled efficiently and economically within pre-erected canopy structures by means of small, easily manoeuvrable cranes.’

‘Through the life of the buildings this [will] allow reconfiguration and maintenance…of the canopy envelope from within.’ — architectsjournal.co.uk

City Hall. It's traditionally the place where technology gets stuffed into a drawer and forgotten. But as budgets recover from the Great Recession and smartphone-toting citizens prod municipal officials, cities are now more Boston Dynamics than Boss Tweed. Soon the pols will be promising sensor-driven pots that cook the chicken for you, just the way you like it. — wired.com