
News
North American companies order a record high number of robots in 2021
More robots joined the US workforce last year than ever before. They have taken on the job of collecting bottles and cans from the sorting lines of recycling plants to packing small consumer goods into cartons at online store warehouses.
Companies across North America have committed more than $2 billion to procure robots in 2021 to cope with record demand and labor shortages caused by the pandemic. Robots have taken over a growing number of industries, going far beyond their historic surge in the automotive sector.
Factories and other industrial users ordered 39,708 robots in 2021, up 28% from 2020, according to data compiled by the industry group Association for Advancing Automation, also known as A3. The previous annual record for robot orders was set in 2017, when North American companies ordered 34,904 robots worth $1.9 billion.
Back in 2016, more than twice as many robots were sold to automakers than to all other industry sectors combined. But in 2020, other businesses eclipsed automakers as buyers of cutting-edge machines, and in 2021, the share of robots sent to non-automotive companies has risen even more.
According to A3, the fastest growth in robot orders comes from the steel, food and consumer industries. Another fast growing sector is e-commerce.

News
VTB online bank launched bill payment using QR codes

The VTB Bank team announced the launch of a new feature in the web version of VTB Online. According to the press service, VTB was the first on the market to introduce the possibility of paying for services using QR codes in an online bank.
Thus, now users will be able to pay for services using a QR code without using the bank’s mobile application. The functionality is available on iOS smartphones through the Safari browser (starting from version 11), and Android smartphones through the Chrome browser (from version 57 and newer). Later, the service will start working on tablets, laptops and desktop PCs.
To pay using a QR code, the user needs to go to VTB Online through a mobile browser and select the appropriate icon in the interface, after which the device’s camera is activated to read the code. The system itself recognizes all the necessary information for payment and automatically fills in the payment order, which the client will need to check and confirm the transfer of funds to the recipient.
Wearables
1.39-inch AMOLED screen, 150 sport modes, GPS, NFC, heart rate and SpO2 sensors, water resistance and 24 days of battery life for $225. Amazfit T-Rex 2 smartwatch introduced

Huami has officially unveiled the T-Rex 2 smartwatch, one of the brand’s most secure models. Thus, the device remains operational at temperatures down to -30 ° C, it can be submerged in water (10ATM, you can swim with the watch). There’s also a built-in compass, barometer, altimeter, and GPS receiver (supporting Beidou, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS).
The watch uses a rechargeable battery with a capacity of 500 mAh, the declared autonomy reaches 24 days. The round AMOLED display is characterized by a diameter of 1.39 inches.
Amazfit T-Rex 2 supports 150 sports modes, six-channel optical sensor BioTracker 3.0 PPG of its own design supports heart rate and blood oxygen concentration. Also, the device allows you to determine the frequency of breathing and recognizes atrial fibrillation. Naturally, there are systems for monitoring sleep and stress.
The novelty will go on sale in China on May 31 at a price of $225. The color options for Amazfit T-Rex 2 are black and green.
Gaming
Sony will not let you enjoy the old games to the fullest. PS3 projects within PS Plus will be released without add-ons

As part of the updated subscription service Sony PS Plus will be available, including projects for PS3. But due to the very specific architecture of the processor of this console, the games will be available in the cloud service.
And now it became known that such games, unfortunately, will not support add-ons. DLC may someday be added, but at first you definitely shouldn’t expect them.
For example, Asura’s Wrath, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Crash Commando, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and a number of other games received various kinds of add-ons at one time, for some projects there were a lot of such DLCs. But within the framework of PS Plus, it will not be possible to try them out. The source also publishes a list of PS3 games, but we published them a week ago, when Sony itself did this.
As a reminder, today we also learned that some classic games will work even worse on the new consoles than on the original PlayStation.
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