Robots were invented to make our lives easier in some way or to do things that we cannot do, like exploring Mars.

Although robots fascinate people, they have not yet made much of a mark on the world. Especially compared to the make believe ones we’ve seen in movies like iRobot and The Terminator. However, we’re very close to this changing.

More companies are investing in the future of robots. The New York Times reported that in 2013, Google bought eight promising robot start-ups in the United States and Japan to help build a “new generation” of robots. These robots will make the electronics assembly process easier and possibly help with Google’s same-day delivery efforts. Andy Rubin, who was the mastermind behind the Android operating system, is working on this top secret Robots project.

Amazon.com, which is Google’s competitor in the Robots category, stated that one day they want Amazon’s books and DVDs delivered to customers via miniature helicopters. Deliveries by drones? Now that will be something to see. Or will it be a robot stepping out of a self-driving car to deliver your package? These are just some of the assumptions or ideas that could easily become reality.

Another industry where robots will come in handy will be mining. By 2030 we might see robots that can map underground chambers to within a millimeter of detail with lasers or automated drills to separate waste from valuable. And at waste dumps, robots will be used to extract every last metal particle.

Some interesting robots to watch out for that were introduced to the market this year:

– The Grillbot $120, cleans your bbq grill like a vacuum
– AIMe is a small camera that detects motion up to 150 feet with special sensors. This robot
will be available in June of 2014 with a price tag of $299.99
– Keecker is a lifestyle robot, working in your home to provide entertainment and
communications. You can use its built-in projector to watch a movie or surf the web on any
nearby wall, or listen to music.

Check out this video of some pretty cool robots. Not sure why they would be terrifying though:

Just as soon as people started thinking Twitter was behind in its game, news sprouted up from social media channels about Twitter growing. At the moment Twitter has 241 million active users and it hasn’t been growing as fast as Facebook, Vine and YouTube. Time to play catch up?

Here’s a run down of what to expect and what has already popped up in Twitter News:

Last week Twitter rolled out a new platform for hosting video that gives iPhone and Android phone users previews of video clips in their feeds. With a single click you’re able to play the clip. This new feature on Twitter is called in-line video. You can see this feature being used on Vines. Twitter was behind in the video category and it was about time they started focusing on it.

It has been reported that Twitter is experimenting with the capability to see how many people have viewed your tweets, which at the moment only advertisers can see. The view count would be shown underneath each tweet, similar to how Facebook shows the amount of views underneath each Page post. How exciting is that?!

Tweet views will measure the reach of your tweets and help individuals and companies to recognize what they need to do or keep doing in order to get Re-Tweets and Favourites. Lots of views but no engagement says a whole lot to Social Media Managers. Fingers crossed this ‘experiment’ pulls through and every Twitter user can start benefiting from the data.

Twitter has also announced an update to its mobile apps that would give users more options when posting pictures. Many people on Twitter have already called Twitter out as copying Facebook because they changed the famous ‘Re-Tweet’ lingo to ‘Share’. I’m not a fan of changing the Twitter language, especially when so many users have gotten the hang of using RT. It’s one thing to expand, but changing something that isn’t broken. Not cool.

Why did @Twitter take out ‘Retweet’ and put ‘Share tweet’..?

— Orochimaru. (@Mitha07) March 26, 2014

There was another update to twitter mobile apps that would give users more options when posting pictures. One being the ability to tag up to 10 people in photos without lowering the character count within your tweet. Also, users will be able to post up to four photos in a single tweet and join them together like a small collage. Sounds like Instagram to me.

In-line videos, with one click view like Vines, yay or nay? How can ‘tweet views’ help you or your business? Will you use the new picture features?

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The Future of ROBOTS