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At Carnegie Mellon University, robotics professor David Bourne and some of his students are working on software that enables a robot to cope with uncertainty over where a part will be on the assembly table, and to experiment with ways to put things together until they find the optimum methods. Using this learning method, a robot at CMU is able to pick up a battery from various angles and, sometimes, snap it into a Blackberry-a job most people can do intuitively. As the software improves, robots will learn faster, Prof. Bourne says.
卡内基梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon University)的机器人学教授戴维•伯恩(David Bourne)正带领学生研发一款软件，以便让机器人有能力判断应该把零部件放到什么位置，并能够探索不同的装配方式以确定最优途径。通过这种学习模式，卡内基梅隆大学研发的机器人可以从多个角度拾起一块电池，有时候甚至能把电池装到黑莓手机上。这项工作如果由人来做的话，应该是举手之劳，但机器人若能完成实属不易。伯恩教授表示，随着软件的不断完善，机器人的学习能力还会加快。
Will robots be able to bring production of such things as the iPhone to America? "That's what we're working towards," Prof. Bourne said. "It's not going to happen instantly."
机器人的应用能够促使iPhone这类电子产品的制造回流到美国本土吗？伯恩教授表示，"这正是我们的目标，但短期之内还无法实现。"
In another part of his lab, Prof. Bourne's students are working on sensors that allow a robot to show a human colleague where to place parts so the robot can assemble them.
在伯恩教授实验室的另一处，他的学生们还在研究传感器技术，以便让机器人能在人类的指点下学会将一个零部件装配到特定位置。
Rodney Brooks, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology robotics professor who helped launch the Roomba home-vacuuming robot a decade ago as a founder of iRobot Corp., believes industrial robots need to be updated to not only be smaller and nimbler, but also easier to control.
罗德尼•布鲁克斯(Rodney Brooks)以前是麻省理工学院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)的机器人学教授，协助推出了Roomba家用清洁机器人，他在10年前创立了iRobot Corp.公司。布鲁克斯认为，工业机器人需要进一步的升级换代，不但要更小巧灵活，还要更易于控制。
His Boston-based start-up, Heartland Robotics Inc., plans to introduce its first robots later this year. Dr. Brooks says they will be affordable for small manufacturers and include controls more akin to an iPhone than a mainframe computer.
布鲁克斯在波士顿新创的Heartland Robotics Inc.公司计划于今年推出第一款机器人。他说这款机器人的价格将能为小型制造商所接受，其控制界面不像大型计算机那样复杂，而是接近iPhone式的简洁方式。
Dr. Brooks refuses to say much about the machines but the goal is "to introduce robots into places that have not been automated before, making manufacturers more efficient, their workers more productive and keeping jobs from migrating to low-cost regions." He plans to make the robots in the U.S.
布鲁克斯不愿透露太多关于这款机器人的信息，但其目标是"让机器人进入从未涉及过的领域，让制造过程更有效率，提高工人产能，避免生产过程和就业岗位流向低成本国家。"布鲁克斯打算在美国国内生产这款机器人。
One of Dr. Brooks's former students, Aaron Edsinger, has become a potential rival. When Mr. Edsinger was a doctoral student at MIT six years ago, he programmed a robot to help make a margarita. The point wasn't to replace bartenders but to show that a robot could deal with a somewhat unpredictable environment. Now Mr. Edsinger heads a San Francisco-based company, Redwood Robotics, trying to develop low-cost robot arms for manufacturing and other applications.
阿隆•艾幸格(Aaron Edsinger)曾是布鲁克斯的学生，现在则成了布鲁克斯的潜在竞争对手。六年前他在麻省理工学院攻读博士学位时，曾给机器人编程，让其调制一杯玛格丽特鸡尾酒(margarita)。这样做的目的并非要让机器人取代酒吧调酒师，而是显示机器人能够应付一些难以预测的复杂工作环境。如今，艾幸格是旧金山Redwood Robotics公司的负责人，公司正在研究低成本的机器人手臂，用于产品制造和其他一些应用领域。
In work partly funded by Boeing Co. (BA), Julie Shah, an assistant professor in the aeronautics department at MIT, is researching ways for robots to adapt to the differing work habits of human colleagues so they can jointly assemble airplane parts.
朱丽叶•莎(Julie Shah)是麻省理工学院的助教，她在从事一项由波音公司(Boeing Co.)资助的研究工作，寻找方法让机器人适应人类同事的各种工作习惯，以便与人类协同，共同装配飞机零部件。
The idea of people working hand in metal fist with robots "is becoming less like science fiction every year," Ms. Shah says. By James R. Hagerty and Miho Inada, The Wall Street Journal;
莎表示，人类和机器人协同作业的理念"正在远离科幻小说的范畴，一年比一年变得更为现实。"
