Tech

Tech companies eye robots as wages rise

In the technology industry today, the buzzword is robots.

Tech companies’ motivations are fueled partly by the lure of cheaper labor.

As wage levels surge in such nations as China, certain kinds of manufacturing are coming back to the US — but corporations must keep labor expenses down.

Robots, as we know, don’t tend to ask for raises or time-and-a-half on holidays.

So, if many companies have their way, robots will play a bigger part in our daily lives.

CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired an eye-opening segment in November in which Amazon illustrated how its army of robots — drones, actually — could deliver packages to customers within hours.

“We’re just at the beginning of this trend,” suggests Paul Carroll, the co-author of “The New Killer Apps: How Large Companies Can Out-Innovate Start-Ups.”

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos looked like a cat that had swallowed a canary on “60 Minutes.”

Whether or not this is a case of sheer bravado, it is clear that Amazon is dealing from a position of strength on Wall Street.

Amazon’s soaring shares surpassed $400 in December, underscoring a roughly 55 percent gain in the last 12 months.

The company is in a prime position to roll the dice and make a bet on the future. For now, Amazon is one of the darlings of Wall Street, a status that gives it an enviable status in corporate America and allows it the freedom to charge into the future.

Amazon isn’t the only technology company that’s looking ahead this way.

For instance, Google has acquired Boston Dynamics, a company that constructs robots that copy the movements of human beings and animals with notable speed and efficiency. This is reportedly the eighth robotics entity that Google has taken over in the past six months.

“Google is focused on a broad array of ways that they can commercialize technology,” pointed out Brian Wieser, a securities analyst with Pivotal Research Group. “So far, Google has focused on advertising-centric ideas. Now they think they can apply their competence to many spheres.”

Basically, robots can be programmed to do just about anything.

“Technology has improved so much, and will keep improving for the foreseeable future,” Carroll said. “Sensors are so cheap that you can build them into anything for almost no cost. Add a motor, and you have a robot. Computing power costs essentially nothing, and everything can be controlled wirelessly these days, so it isn’t hard to imagine interesting things that robots can do.”

Look out, America.