One of the more serious limitations facing the robotics industry today is that each bot it produces is an island unto itself. Worse, robots’ primitive AI doesn’t allow for intuitive thinking or problem solving — what’s known as artificial general intelligence. Looking to overcome this problem, researchers from several different European universities have developed a cloud-computing platform for robots that will allow them to collaborate — and make each other smarter — over the Internet.

The rote tasks of any information-intensive job can be automated. It doesn’t matter if you are a doctor, lawyer, architect, reporter, or even programmer: The robot takeover will be epic.

We’ve heard about Foxconn’s legion of robots scheduled to take over for the company’s human work force, and we know that robots are already working in many factories in the U.S.

Computer processors keep getting faster and faster and memory gets cheaper and cheaper. But the motors and actuators that move robots aren’t improving nearly as fast.

RobotAppStore is the first robot app marketplace. The store supplies apps for consumer robots like iRobot’s Roomba vacuum cleaner, InnvoLab’s pet dinasour Pleo or Sony’s Aibo robot dog.

Many of the new production methods in this next revolution will require fewer people working on the factory floor.