Experts have been promising for decades to put a robot in everyone's home - and finally robots are beginning to make the transition from specialist to everyday use.
Spencer Kelly discovers the similarities between robots used for cleaning and those used by soldiers in Afghanistan for a very different purpose.
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The Hong Kong stock exchange has seen many proposed listings being cancelled or postponed Shares of Citic Securities have fallen on their debut at the Hong Kong stock exchange as market volatility continues to dent investor sentiment. Its shares fell by as much as 10% in early trade to HK$11.90 from an offer price of HK$13.30.
Citic securities, China's largest listed brokerage had sold 995.3m shares raising HK$13.2bn ($1.7bn, ￡1.1bn).
Many Chinese firms have recently cancelled or postponed their proposed listing on the exchange.
"It is a very difficult time for any initial public offering (IPO) because market sentiment is so weak right now," said Patrick Yiu of CASH Asset Management.
No appetite?Hong Kong stock exchange has witnessed sharp falls in recent days, with the Hang Seng index hitting a two-and-a-half year low on Tuesday.
Analysts said that given the uncertainty surrounding the global economy and the volatility in the stock markets, investors were being cautious.
"Investors want to look for stocks now with a track record, with very low valuations," said Mr Liu. "They don't have the appetite for new stocks."
The lack of investor confidence has seen listings worth some $4.5bn being cancelled or postponed.
Sany Heavy Industry Co has delayed the launch of the retail portion of its $3.3bn offering and also pushed back its listing date.
XCMG Construction Machinery Co, China's biggest crane maker also cancelled its proposed $1.1bn listing after some of the underwriters pulled out.
Activity remained subdued at US factories in the summer New orders at US factories declined slightly, adding to concerns over the health of the world's largest economy.The Commerce Department said orders for manufactured goods fell 0.2% in August, after rising a downwardly revised 2.1% in July.
Economists had expected orders to be unchanged.
But orders for capital goods - expensive items such as computers and communications equipment - rose 0.9%, the second gain in three months.
Sluggish growth in the US economy earlier this year has not been sufficient to reduce high levels of unemployment.
The economic recovery is "close to faltering", Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday.
On Monday, the ISM Manufacturing Index unexpectedly rose in September, beating expectations that the index would remain unchanged.
Millions of students will have access to the tablets, officials hope India has launched what it says is the world's cheapest touch-screen tablet computer, priced at just $35 (￡23).Costing a fraction of Apple's iPad, the subsidised Aakash is aimed at students.
It supports web browsing and video conferencing, has a three-hour battery life and two USB ports, but questions remain over how it will perform.
Officials hope the computer will give digital access to students in small towns and villages across India, which lags behind its rivals in connectivity.
At the launch in the Indian capital, Delhi, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal handed out 500 Aakash (meaning sky) tablets to students who will test them.
He said the government planned to buy 100,000 of the tablets. It hopes to distribute 10 million of the devices to students over the next few years.
"The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide," Mr Sibal said.
The Aakash has been developed by UK-based company DataWind and Indian Institute of Technology (Rajasthan).It is due to be assembled in India, at DataWind's new production centre in the southern city of Hyderabad.
"Our goal was to break the price barrier for computing and internet access," DataWind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli said.
"We've created a product that will finally bring affordable computing and internet access to the masses."
The company says it will also offer a commercial version of the tablet, called UbiSlate. It is expected to hit the shelves later this year, retailing for about $60.
Usability questionsMr Sibal says the device will enhance learning in India.
Experts say it does have the potential to make a huge difference to the country's education, particularly in rural areas where schools and students do not have access to libraries and up-to-date information.
Mr Sibal (right) hopes the tablet will end the 'digital divide' But critics say it is too early to say how the Aakash will be received as most cheap tablets in the past have turned out to be painfully slow.
"The thing with cheap tablets is most of them turn out to be unusable," Rajat Agrawal of technology reviewers BGR India told Reuters news agency.
"They don't have a very good touch screen, and they are usually very slow."
Critics also point out that an earlier cheap laptop plan by the same ministry came to nothing.
In 2009, it announced plans for a laptop priced as low as $10, raising eyebrows and triggering worldwide media interest.
But there was disappointment after the "Sakshat" turned out to be a prototype of a hand-held device, with an unspecified price tag, that never materialised.
Consumers are being hurt by global economic problems and a weaker labour market Retail sales in Japan registered a surprisingly sharp fall in August as a post-earthquake rebound petered out.Sales fell 2.7% versus a year ago, a much sharper decline than the 0.6% rate expected by markets.
It ends two months of rising sales during which the Japanese economy appeared to be returning to normality after the natural disaster in March.
The disappointing result mirrors a similar downturn in consumer spending and sentiment in the US and Europe.
On a seasonally-adjusted basis, August sales fell 1.7% from July, which were themselves down a revised 0.3% from the month before.
Wholesalers meanwhile continued to do well, according to the data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The volume of wholesale transactions accelerated to a year-on-year rate of 5.6% in the month.
The market has been relatively difficult for first-time buyers House prices are "lacking genuine direction", according to the Halifax, as it reported a 0.5% fall in values in September compared with August.Prices were down 2.3% from a year ago, leaving the average home in the UK worth ￡161,132, the lender said.
It said there had been a mixed pattern of monthly changes in prices, but broad stability overall.
And the lender said it expected little change in prices and activity during the rest of the year.
"Greater uncertainty about economic and personal financial circumstances, together with pressure on householders' finances from weak earnings growth, higher inflation and increases in taxes, are likely to be constraining housing demand," said Halifax housing economist Martin Ellis.
"Despite these pressures, low interest rates and a rise in employment over the past year, have been supporting the market."
LendingPrices in the three months to September were 0.1% higher than the previous three months.
The report of static house prices from the Halifax's lending data chimes with the latest figures from the Nationwide. The building society said last week that prices were "treading water".
However, the latest statistics on mortgage approvals from the Bank of England may suggest that sales funded by mortgage borrowing could pick up this autumn.
It said the number of new mortgages approved, but not yet lent, for home buyers rose to 52,410 in August - its highest monthly level since December 2009.
