erman robotics maker Kuka is on the brink of agreeing to an investor agreement with Chinese bidder Midea that includes a long-term commitment to existing headquarters, factories and jobs, a source close to the negotiations said.

Kuka needs to decide in the coming week whether it wants to recommend the acceptance of Midea’s 4.5 billion euro ($4.99 billion) bid, the biggest German industrial technology company to be targeted by a Chinese buyer in a wave of recent deals.

The source told Reuters that there had been a breakthrough in negotiations between Kuka and Midea, with the results presented to a meeting of the supervisory board on Saturday.

The biggest retailer in the U.S., Walmart, is experimenting with robot shopping carts.

​The company has yet to release any details of how the robo-carts work. But ​the news highlights how rapidly automation is moving into shopping and warehouse fulfillment. It also shows how keen Walmart is to embrace any technology that might help it counter the shift toward online shopping and faster product delivery. Just a few weeks ago, Walmart also said it was testing whether drones could help check the inventory in its stores.

In the movie “Her”, Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson portray a human being and a robot who develop an intimate, emotional relationship. But can intimacy between humans and robots actually happen? According to new Israeli research, some robots do in fact generate strong emotional responses in the people they interact with.

In a new study by IDC Herzliya researchers, participants told a personal event to a small desktop robot. For 50 percent of the participants, the robot was responsive and supportive of their emotional needs, using gestures and on-screen text. The other 50 percent were met with an unresponsive robot.

La nueva fábrica de Adidas en Alemania es uno de los ejemplos más visibles de cómo las grandes marcas están volviendo a su entorno debido a los crecientes costes de la mano de obra en Asia. Pero la fábrica de 4.645 metros cuadrados que Adidas construirá en la ciudad bávara de Ansbach no será una más, ya que dependerá de los robots y la automatización para fabricar 500.000 pares de zapatillas al año -menos del 1% de la producción total de Adidas al año- cuando empiece a funcionar a plena capacidad en 2017. La firma dice que con ello mejorará la calidad de sus productos, reducirá el tiempo que tarda en llevarlos al mercado y bajará los costes de almacenamiento.

No one wants to walk with a walker, but age has a way of making people compromise on their quality of life. The team behind Superflex, which spun out of SRI International in May, thinks there could be another way.

The company is building wearable robotic suits, plus other types of clothing, that can make it easier for soldiers to carry heavy loads or for elderly or disabled people to perform basic tasks. A current prototype is a soft suit that fits over most of the body. It delivers a jolt of supporting power to the legs, arms, or torso exactly when needed to reduce the burden of a load or correct for the body’s shortcomings.

The Superflex suit learns a wearer’s gate in order to kick in power when needed.