NEWS FROM ELSEWHERE

25 April 2014 Last updated at 07:27 ET

China: Firm 3D prints 10 full-sized houses in a day

By News from Elsewhere......media reports from around the world, found by BBC Monitoring

A company in China has used giant 3D printers to make 10 full-sized, detached single-storey houses in a day, it appears.

A private firm, WinSun, used four 10m x 6.6m printers to spray a mixture of cement and construction waste to build the walls, layer by layer, official Xinhua news agency reported.

The cheap materials used during the printing process and the lack of manual labour means that each house can be printed for under $5,000, the 3dprinterplans website says.

"We can print buildings to any digital design our customers bring us. It's fast and cheap," says WinSun chief executive Ma Yihe. He also hopes his printers can be used to build skyscrapers in the future. At the moment, however, Chinese construction regulations do not allow multi-storey 3D-printed houses, Xinhua says.

The method of 3D printing has become more widely used in recent years. Manufacturers and designers have been able to make everyday items such as jewellery and furniture, as well as more specialised objects like industrial components.

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Robotic futures: Telepresence your way into work

1 April 2014 Last updated at 00:07 BST

When you can not get to a meeting or inspect a warehouse in person, the next best thing is to transport yourself there remotely.

'Telepresence' is fast gaining traction in the workplace as videoconferencing and other technological tools become ever more sophisticated. Today users can remotely control tablets on robotic wheels around their environment.

But Massachusetts-based iRobot has now taken the idea one step further - with a five-foot high semi-autonomous robot able to map its surroundings and drive itself from one part of a building to another.

From Boston, Richard Taylor was given a walkthrough of the droid with Chief Technology Officer Paulo Pirjanian - who was three thousand miles away on the West Coast.