Robots already surround us, and they’re about to do much more than work on assembly lines and pick up dust bunnies.

If you have been following technology news, you might be wondering if robots are about to take over our lives. Google in particular has made a slew of robotics acquisitions: the company bought eight robotics companies in the second half of last year, including Boston Dynamics, a maker of legged robots that can balance well enough to climb over obstacles and run, and it recently agreed to buy drone maker Titan Aerospace, whose robotic aircraft could help bring the Internet to remote parts of the world.

What does it all mean? At the least, companies like Google are anticipating business trends. These companies know that robotics is important, maybe even revolutionary. But if a revolution is coming to the consumer market, what will it look like? And why would it happen now?

If you’re waiting for an invasion of walking, talking, anthropomorphic robots, the coming changes will surprise you. In fact, many have already occurred. Robots are already an essential part of modern civilization, but they have mainly performed static, repetitive tasks (dispensing cash as ATMs, for example). Now, thanks to trends including the plunging prices of certain technology components, robots will soon be able to tackle an array of more complex, varied tasks with greater degrees of autonomy and intelligence.

The true barrier in this market has been the cost of buying and prototyping the key hardware components—components that allow machines to gather data and interact with the world around them. And now, for the first time, these components can be tested and produced at a price consumers can afford. We might see a robot that feeds your pet when you’re away from home, or a robot consisting of a punching bag with hands that helps you train at boxing.

But let’s return to the ATM. Imagine that it could learn to walk around a festival or event and focus on people who looked as though they were interested in making a purchase. Technological advances of the last few years have made it economically feasible to explore ideas like this. Because of the boom in smartphone production, a small camera can cost as little as $20, making it easier and cheaper for machines to read visual data from the world around them. Other components—such as processors and sensors—have also become exponentially cheaper in the last few years (again, largely thanks to smartphone production). There are still large and exciting challenges to overcome (such as creating the software to run such a “smart” ATM), but the technology and the business models already exist.

The Roomba is one of the few success stories in the market for home robotics, and it’s a good example of how a task can be automated with the right combination of technology and cheaper components (such as motors and sensors). And the market for vacuums alone is huge: Transparency Market Research estimated it at $11 billion in 2012 and projected an increase to $14.6 billion by 2018, with robotic vacuum sales rising faster than others.

There’s plenty of room for improvement in this niche market as well. Robotic vacuums like the Roomba must learn to navigate obstacles more skillfully, clean vertical surfaces, reach high places, and receive feedback and instructions by phone. Even more advances may soon be possible; perhaps in the future, the robot will be able to split apart into smaller robots in order to clean cracks and hard-to-reach places.

The smartphone and PC revolutions have given us valuable precedents for studying this market. Once we can make useful devices affordable enough, an entire industry of thinkers, engineers, and inventors will spring up to address the rising demand. In fact, we’ll probably see an app store for robot hardware as well.

Indeed, trying to predict where the robotics industry is headed feels like holding your first iPhone in 2007 and imagining how it would become part of our lives—it’s exciting to ponder what the future holds, but impossible to know. When it introduced the first iPhone, Apple had created an extraordinary piece of technology. But more important, it had produced an affordable product. We can now do the same with robots, and the possible applications are endless.

Apple Inc’s suppliers will begin producing larger versions of the iPhone in China next month, Bloomberg reported citing sources.

Apple is ramping up production of iPhones with 4.7 and 5.5-inch screen sizes, which may be shipped to retailers around September, the report said. (bloom.bg/1mgnfSB)

Apple launches new versions of the smartphone line that drives half its business around the fall of every year.

The industry has speculated for some time now that Apple intends to design and sell a device with a larger screen, to fend off Samsung phones with much bigger displays that have proven popular in Asia and elsewhere.

Hon Hai Precision Industry will recruit over 100,000 people in mainland China to produce the newest iPhone from Apple, Taiwan’s Economic Daily News reported on Monday, in what the report called the firm’s largest single hiring spree in China.

Fellow Taiwanese contract manufacturer Pegatron Corp will also expand its workforce in one mainland factory by 30 percent, in response to expected high demand for the new iPhone.

Apple was not immediately available for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

California-based skyTran has teamed up with IsraelAerospace Industries (IAI) to construct the world’s first public pilot project for skyTran’s elevated transit network.

A number of skyTran projects are being planned globally, including in India and the United States, pending the success of the pilot in Israel.

The pilot will be a 400-500 meter (yard) loop built at IAI’s campus in central Israel and, if successful, will be followed by a commercial network in Tel Aviv in the coming years, skyTran CEO Jerry Sanders told Reuters, without disclosing the cost.

SkyTran is a rapid transit system in which lightweight two-person vehicles are suspended from elevated magnetic levitation tracks. The skyTran vehicles in the pilot will cruise at speeds of up to 70 km an hour but that will jump to 240 km an hour at the commercial phase, Sanders said.

Tel Aviv if often gridlocked with commuter traffic as there is no subway and many commuters travel by car.

“Tel Aviv is a world city. It’s a destination for people around the world. A center of commerce. Israelis love technology and we don’t foresee a problem of people not wanting to use the system. Israel is a perfect test site,” Sanders said.

The first components will be pre-assembled at skyTran’s headquarters at the NASA Research Park in California. The rest will be constructed locally and the system should be running by the end of 2015, Sanders added.

At the same time his company hopes to finalize preparations for its first ever commuter line, which in the first phase will be about 7 km (2.7 miles) long, consist of three stations, and cost about $50 million to build.

Everything will be automated. Passengers will be able to order a vehicle on their smartphone to meet them at a specific station, and then head directly to their destination, cutting travel time dramatically.

“It can handle 12,000 people an hour per guideway, and that number grows exponentially with each additional guideway,” Sanders said. “That is more than a light rail and equal to three lanes of highway.”

IAI, Israel’s largest defense company, said it would bring to the pilot its expertise inengineering, robotics and control.

Startup Stripe and China’s Alipay have struck a deal to allow Chinese buyers to pay for purchases on the U.S. service, in a rare agreement between a Western payments service and the Alibaba affiliate.

Alipay, once part of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba before it was split off, handles about half of all online transactions in China. Stripe said the deal will let its own customers more easily handle purchases from the world’s second largest economy.

Stripe, which is often compared to Ebay Inc’s PayPal, said few of the credit card brands it supports are used in China. It decided to add support for Alipay to bridge the gap between Chinese consumers and the businesses whose payments it handles.

“I don’t think the people realize the extent to which the Internet economy is balkanized,” Stripe President and Co-founder John Collison said in an interview.

Currently most businesses can accept online payments from just a minority of the world’s population, Collison added. “What we’ve been focusing on this year has been making Stripe work really well for global businesses.”

Alipay users can now enter their email address and a six-digit SMS code to buy things from companies that use Stripe to process payments, rather than be bounced to another site.

But payments is just one challenge for companies looking to sell goods around the world. Another is the complicated and time time-consuming process of getting physical goods to consumers in places like China, India and Brazil.

“That is something we have heard from our merchants,” Collison said, of these logistical challenges. “Maybe some day we will end up doing something there. That’s one of the big challenges for them.”

The startup raised $80 million in January from venture capital investors in a deal that values Stripe at a hefty $1.75 billion. Since January, it has grown from 90 people to 130.The transaction puts Stripe in the rarefied company of startups valued at more than $1 billion just three years after brothers Patrick and John Collison debuted their service.

Stripe’s clients have included ridesharing service Lyft and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Its institutional investors include Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst Partners and Khosla Ventures.

Stripe is also backed by three of PayPal’s co-founders: venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Tesla Motors Inc CEO Elon Musk and Max Levchin, who recently raised $45 million for his latest startup Affirm, which extends financing to shoppers in a matter of seconds.

Nest, the Google Inc-owned maker of smart thermostats and other home automation products, will allow other companies to create apps that communicate with its devices.

The program marks the first time Nest has allowed third-party companies to access its gadgets, potentially opening the door to the rich selection of apps and services that have made smartphones popular.

More than 5,000 developers have already expressed interest in developing apps for Nest products, according to the company.

Nest said that it was working with companies including washer-dryer maker Whirlpool Corpand automatic garage door opener company Chamberlain. Closing a garage door for instance, can alert the Nest Thermostat that the user is away from home and to turn off the heat. LED light bulbs from Lifx can be set to flash red if a Nest smoke detector senses smoke in the house.

Google acquired Nest for $3.2 billion in January, underscoring the Web search company’s efforts to extend its reach into a broad field of Internet-connected devices.

Nest on Friday announced plans to acquire Dropcam, a video-monitoring home security product.

Nest suffered a public relations black eye in April when it halted sales of its smoke alarms because of a defect that could cause users to turn the alarm off unintentionally. Nest resumed selling the device earlier this month, though it has deactivated the problematic “Wave” feature – an option that allowed users to stop false alarms with the wave of a hand.

New technology could be twice as efficient at converting sunlight to electricity.

The best solar cells convert less than one-third of the energy in sunlight into electricity, although for decades researchers have calculated that exotic physics could allow them to convert far more. Now researchers at Sharp have built a prototype that demonstrates one of these ideas. If it can be commercialized, it would double the amount of power a solar cell can generate, offering a way to make solar power far more economical.

The researchers figured out a way around a bothersome phenomenon: when sunlight strikes a solar cell, it produces some very high-energy electrons, but within a few trillionths of a second, those electrons shed most of their energy as waste heat.

The approach is one of several that could someday break open the solar industry and make fossil fuels expensive in comparison. High-efficiency solar cells would lower the cost of installation, which today is often more expensive than the cells themselves.

Exploiting exotic physics requires both understanding the behavior of certain materials and figuring out how to make them with high precision (see “Capturing More Light with a Single Solar Cell” and “Nanocharging Solar”). The Sharp device relies on the ability to make high-quality, nanometers-thick layers of semiconducting materials (such as gallium arsenide), which create a shortcut for high-energy electrons to move out of the solar cell.

Another way to achieve ultra-high efficiencies now is by stacking up different kinds of solar cells (see “Exotic, Highly Efficient Solar Cells May Soon Get Cheaper”), but doing so is very expensive. Meanwhile, MIT researchers are studying the transient behavior of electrons in organic materials to find inexpensive ways to make ultra-efficient solar cells.

Each of the alternative approaches is at an early stage. James Dimmock, the senior researchers who developed the new device at Sharp, says he expects that his technique will initially be used to help boost the efficiency of conventional devices, not to create new ones.

Global manufacturing activity appeared to accelerate in June, buoyed by a return to growth in China and Japan and the fastest expansion in the U.S. factory sector in more than four years.

Surveys of manufacturers around the world released on Monday gave some positive signals for the global economic outlook, but dark clouds remained over Europe, where an unexpectedly sharp fall in French business activity dragged on the wider euro zone.

The data suggested Beijing’s targeted stimulus measures and Japan’s improving labor market were helping domestic demand in Asia’s dominant economies.

The HSBC/Markit Flash China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index rose more than expected to 50.8 in June from 49.4 a month earlier. The 50-point level separates growth in activity from contraction.

“The authorities’ mini-stimulus is filtering through to the real economy,” said Qu Hongbin, chief economist for China at HSBC.

China’s government has unveiled a series of modest measures to support economic growth in recent months, including reserve requirement cuts for some banks that could encourage lending.

The Markit/JMMA flash Japan Manufacturing PMI also rose in June, hitting 51.1 and showing the first growth in three months.

External demand remained weak for the two export powerhouses, and some analysts think China may need more stimulus to offset a cooling housing market and avoid a sharp slowdown in economic growth.

Japan’s weak exports also take the gloss off the government’s efforts to breathe new life into its economic reform agenda.

But in a more positive sign for global demand, U.S. factories showed their strongest growth in activity since May 2010, with Markit’s preliminary PMI rising to 57.5.

That bolsters expectations U.S. factories will grow busier in the second half of this year, said Barclays economist Cooper Howes.

While the data was generally positive for the factories of the world’s biggest economies, there were more worrisome signs within Europe.

Germany and France went their separate ways again, with German business activity expanding robustly, albeit at a slower pace than last month, while France’s private sector shrank at the fastest rate in four months.

“The recovery has not gained as much traction as people had hoped,” said Jessica Hinds at Capital Economics. “It’s definitely a concern.”

Markit’s composite PMI, based on surveys of thousands of companies across the 18 countries that use the euro, fell to 52.8 from May’s 53.5. That was well below the consensus in a Reuters survey and matched the lowest forecast polled.

Markit said that with a robust recovery taking place in some euro zone periphery countries, the data still point to second-quarter economic growth of 0.4 percent.

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, was again the driving force although its composite PMI eased to 54.2, while the French index slumped to 48.0, its lowest reading since February.

Also somewhat worryingly for the European Central Bank, a composite PMI sub-index measuring output prices held below the 50 mark for the 27th month, coming in at 49.7 as firms kept cutting prices despite soaring input costs.

Inflation in the euro area slowed to just 0.5 percent in May, prompting the ECB to cut interest rates to record lows and offer new long-term loans to banks to help boost lending to euro zone companies.

“The further weakening of the PMI vindicates the ECB’s recent decision to implement further monetary easing and will keep fears of a Japanification of Europe firmly alive,” said Martin van Vliet at ING.

European stocks fell after the euro zone data in contrast with the upbeat numbers from China that earlier lifted Asian shares and the Australian dollar.

For decades, medical technology firms have searched for ways to let diabetics check blood sugar easily, with scant success. Now, the world’s largest mobile technology firms are getting in on the act.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Samsung Electronics Co (005930.KS) and Google Inc (GOOG.O), searching for applications that could turn nascent wearable technology like smartwatches and bracelets from curiosities into must-have items, have all set their sites on monitoring blood sugar, several people familiar with the plans say.

These firms are variously hiring medical scientists and engineers, asking U.S. regulators about oversight and developing glucose-measuring features in future wearable devices, the sources said.

The first round of technology may be limited, but eventually the companies could compete in a global blood-sugar tracking market worth over $12 billion by 2017, according to research firm GlobalData.

Diabetes afflicts 29 million Americans and costs the economy some $245 billion in 2012, a 41 percent rise in five years. Many diabetics prick their fingers as much as 10 times daily in order to check levels of a type of sugar called glucose.

Non-invasive technology could take many forms. Electricity or ultrasound could pull glucose through the skin for measurement, for instance, or a light could be shined through the skin so that a spectroscope could measure for indications of glucose.

“All the biggies want glucose on their phone,” said John Smith, former chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson’s LifeScan, which makes blood glucose monitoring supplies. “Get it right, and there’s an enormous payoff.”

Apple, Google and Samsung declined to comment, but Courtney Lias, director at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s chemistry and toxicology devices division, told Reuters a marriage between mobile devices and glucose-sensing is “made in heaven.”

In a December meeting with Apple executives, the FDA described how it may regulate a glucometer that measures blood sugar, according to an FDA summary of the discussion.

Such a device could avoid regulation if used for nutrition, but if marketed to diabetics, it likely would be regulated as a medical device, according to the summary, first reported by the Apple Toolbox blog.

The tech companies are likely to start off focusing on non-medical applications, such as fitness and education.

Even an educational device would need a breakthrough from current technology, though, and some in the medical industry say the tech firms, new to the medical world, don’t understand the core challenges.

“There is a cemetery full of efforts” to measure glucose in a non-invasive way, said DexCom chief executive Terrance Gregg, whose firm is known for minimally invasive techniques. To succeed would require “several hundred million dollars or even a billion dollars,” he said.

POACHING

Silicon Valley is already opening its vast wallet.

Medtronic Inc (MDT.N) Senior Vice President of Medicine and Technology Stephen Oesterle recently said he now considers Google to be the medical device firm’s next great rival, thanks to its funding for research and development, or R&D.

“We spend $1.5 billion a year on R&D at Medtronic – and it’s mostly D,” he told the audience at a recent conference. “Google is spending $8 billion a year on R&D and, as far as I can tell, it’s mostly R.”

Google has been public about some of its plans: it has developed a “smart” contact lens that measures glucose. In a blog post detailing plans for its smart contact lens, Google described an LED system that could warn of high or low blood sugar by flashing tiny lights. It has recently said it is looking for partners to bring the lens to market.

The device, which uses tiny chips and sensors that resemble bits of glitter to measure glucose levels in tears, is expected to be years away from commercial development, and skeptics wonder if it will ever be ready.

Previous attempts at accurate non-invasive measurement have been foiled by body movement, and fluctuations in hydration and temperature. Tears also have lower concentrations of glucose, which are harder to track.

But the Life Sciences team in charge of the lens and other related research is housed at the Google X facility, where it works on major breakthroughs such as the self-driving car, a former employee who requested anonymity said.

Apple’s efforts center on its iWatch, which is on track to ship in October, three sources at leading supply chain firms told Reuters. It is not clear whether the initial release will incorporate glucose-tracking sensors.

Still, Apple has poached executives and bio-sensor engineers from such medical technology firms as Masimo Corp (MASI.O), Vital Connect, and the now-defunct glucose monitoring startup C8 Medisensors.

“It has scooped up many of the most talented people with glucose-sensing expertise,” said George Palikaras, CEO of Mediwise, a startup that hopes to measure blood sugar levels beneath the skin’s surface by transmitting radio waves through a section of the human body.

The tech companies are also drawing mainstream interest to the field, he said. “When Google announced its smart contact lens, that was one of the best days of my career. We started getting a ton of emails,” Palikaras said.

Samsung was among the first tech companies to produce a smartwatch, which failed to catch on widely. It since has introduced a platform for mobile health, called Simband, which could be used on smart wrist bands and other mobile devices.

Samsung is looking for partners and will allow developers to try out different sensors andsoftware. One Samsung employee, who declined to be named, said the company expects to foster noninvasive glucose monitoring.

Sources said Samsung is working with startups to implement a “traffic light” system in future Galaxy Gear smartwatches that flashes blood-sugar warnings.

Samsung Ventures has made a number of investments in the field, including in Glooko, a startup that helps physicians access their patients’ glucose readings, and in an Israeli glucose monitoring startup through its $50 million Digital Health Fund.

Ted Driscoll, a health investor with Claremont Creek Ventures, told Reuters he’s heard pitches from potentially promising glucose monitoring startups, over a dozen in recent memory.

Software developers say they hope to incorporate blood glucose data into health apps, which is of particular interest to athletes and health-conscious users.

“We’re paying close attention to research around how sugar impacts weight loss,” said Mike Lee, cofounder of MyFitnessPal.

After decades of false starts, many medical scientists are confident about a breakthrough on glucose monitoring. Processing power allows quick testing of complex ideas, and the miniaturization of sensors, the low cost of electronics, and the rapid proliferation of mobile devices have given rise to new opportunities.

One optimist is Jay Subhash, a recently-departed senior product manager for Samsung Electronics. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it one of these days,” he said.

Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) said it would buy Micros Systems (MCRS.O) in a $5.3 billion deal as the world’s No.2 business software maker looks to boost flagging growth through acquisitions.

The purchase of Micros, which makes point-of-sale hardware and software for restaurantsand hotels, is the first multi-billion dollar acquisition by Oracle in five years and follows disappointing fourth-quarter results.

Analysts said the acquisition could be first in a string of deals for Oracle, which has been stung by aggressive pricing by companies such as Salesforce.com Inc (CRM.N) and Workday Inc (WDAY.N) for their software and Internet-based products.

“We view this morning’s Micros deal as just the start of what we expect will be a surge of M&A activity for Oracle over the coming year …,” FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a note to clients.

“It is clear to us that the company needs to quickly put more ‘growth fuel in its engine’ to catalyze growth in the top-line,” Ives said.

Larry Ellison-led Oracle’s spree of acquisitions has slowed of late. Micros is the company’s largest acquisition since its $5.6 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems in 2009.

Oracle said on Monday it offered Micros shareholders $68 per share, representing a premium of 3.4 percent to the stock’s Friday close.

Micros shares were trading at $67.87 a few minutes after the opening on Monday. Up to Friday’s close, they had risen 14 percent since Bloomberg reported on June 17 that the companies were in talks.

Ives said the Micros deal could help Oracle stave off threat from e-commerce software providers such as Demandware Inc (DWRE.N) and NetSuite Inc (N.N).

Oracle reported on Thursday flat new software sales and internet-based software subscriptions in its fiscal fourth quarter, disappointing investors looking for progress against rivals selling Web-based services.

Oracle said the transaction is expected to add to earnings immediately.

The company’s shares were up 0.4 percent at $40.97 in early trading.

German carmakers are considering the use of aircraft-style “black box” data recorders in self-driving cars, a contentious idea in a country worried about surveillance, but potentially a crucial step in getting the new technology on the road.

Mercedes-Benz and BMW are among automakers to have developed autonomous or semi-autonomous cars, along with technology firm Google.

But while some features, such as assisted parking, are commercially available, legal questions are hampering the roll-out of other technologies, such as automatic overtaking on motorways, and fully self-driven cars remain prototypes.

Installing an aircraft-style data recorder could help to address some of these questions by giving manufacturers and insurers clarity over who is liable when an autonomous car gets into a crash.

The issue is being debated by Germany’s “roundtable on autonomous driving”, a group hosted by government officials.

The group aims to ensure Germany does not lose its edge in car manufacturing and includes automakers, lawyers, privacy advocates and insurance executives tasked with identifying shortcomings in Germany’s regulation, technological know-how, and legal framework.

“Whether cars should have a black box is one of the items being discussed,” a person familiar with the deliberations, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

With 90 percent of accidents caused by human error, engineers at automakers are convinced cars should be given more leeway to intervene and help drivers in a dangerous situation, much in the same way computers help pilots land planes.

But a crucial issue to resolve, and one being debated by a subgroup of the roundtable, centers on liability.

German law does not distinguish between a car in an accident which was driving semi-autonomously or completely without driver input, even though there is an enormous difference technologically, and from the level of driver involvement.

To determine whether a car, its driver, or a third-party was primarily responsible for an accident, insurers and carmakers want to collect car data, including its speed and inputs from sensors, cameras and the driver.

Insurers could also use the data to draw up policies.

“We could create insurance premiums more tailored to a certain risk profile,” said Martin Stadler, an expert for automotive matters at German insurer Allianz.

Who gets to gather vehicle data and how, though, is highly controversial in a country haunted by a history of surveillance from the Gestapo secret police and East Germany’s STASI.

More recently, revelations by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone and mass internet traffic was being monitored, prompted calls for even tighter privacy safeguards.

KEEPING THE SOFTWARE FIRMS AT BAY

Information about the location and speed of a car could also be attractive to advertisers and communications companies who could use the data for their own commercial purposes.

German carmakers say they want to take a restrictive line on how data from autonomous and semi-autonomous cars is used, a move that could make it harder for software and telecom companies trying to make inroads into the auto industry.

“We accept that personal data belongs to the customer, and that we are not entitled to do with it whatever we want,” Thomas Weber, head of development at Mercedes-Benz told a conference on innovation last month, a comment which observers took to be a thinly-veiled swipe at Google.

“The fact that we take these issues more seriously than some other companies is an opportunity for German industry,” he said.

Germany’s Auto Industry Association VDA is holding talks about whether it is possible to reach a common position on how to deal with vehicle data rights, Weber said.

The roundtable hopes its stance on data security and other matters will form a template for a “European position” which other manufacturers can adapt. To promote its views, it has already held presentations at the United Nations and European Union.

Its position on data appears to be gaining traction.

“Ultimately the person who generates the data, the driver, should have the final say over how it is used,” Allianz’s Stadler said.

Earlier this month, Peter Mertens, Senior Vice President, Research and Development at Volvo Cars, told a conference: “Our view of autonomous driving is not to gather personal data and use this for business. Our vision is to make driving safer.”