Late summer through early fall is the high season for harvesting apples, and the United States produces a lot of them. According to the U.S. Apple Association, American growers produced an estimated 264 million bushels in 2014. And those apples were picked by hand.

But with advances in machine vision and manipulation, robots may soon join the ranks of human apple pickers. Research firm SRI International announced earlier this month its launch of Abundant Robotics, a startup that intends to automate orchard harvesting with robots.

Abundant Robotics’ harvester is a “horizontally mounted delta robot with a vacuum attachment for gentle high-speed fruit picking,” according to IEEE Spectrum, which obtained a video demonstration of the apple-harvesting robot. Abundant Robotics confirmed that the robot was “an early prototype picking apples in central Washington in the fall of 2015.”

The company envisions robotic harvesting as a way to compensate for declining labor productivity in the fruit industry.

“Our goal is to deliver robotic systems to ease the hardest jobs in agriculture,” said Dan Steere, the CEO of Abundant Robotics, in a company statement. “The first automated apple harvesting system that doesn’t bruise or damage the produce will be a huge breakthrough in an industry that has been dependent on the challenges of seasonal labor.”

Suspended in sleep

Halfway decent sleep is hard to find on a long red-eye flight: There’s no good way to keep your head upright as you doze off in a cramped airplane seat. The widely despised neck pillows sold by the hundreds in airport shops don’t seem to be much help, either.

Enter the NodPod pillow, a new device billed as “the ultimate travel sleep solution.” Suspended by cords from the seat’s headrest, the NodPod has a padded “hammock” that cradles the head under the chin. The goal is to keep the user’s head upright to minimize the neck pain that often results when you sleep with your head at an angle. It could also prevent the irritating experience of nodding yourself awake. The device’s cords have a built-in breakaway clip as a safety feature in the event of a sudden impact.

Judging by its success on Kickstarter, the NodPod looks to be popular with travelers. Paula Blankenship, the creator of the device, by Aug. 31 had raised over $280,000 from more than 6,700 backers, who will each get their own NodPod pillow. —M.C.

Air taxi

Rush-hour traffic is a nightmare for commuters in most of the world’s megacities, and it’s only projected to get worse. Some estimate that by 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will live in major urban areas.

Airbus Group is researching a potential solution to this traffic problem: autonomous flying vehicles for individual passenger and cargo transport. The company has established an “innovation outpost” in Silicon Valley called A3 to develop a prototype by the end of 2017.

“Many of the technologies needed, such as batteries, motors and avionics are most of the way there,” explained A3 project executive Rodin Lyasoff in a press release.

Airbus Helicopters is also working on a futuristic, multipassenger, electric helicopter. The proposed helicopter, initially pilot operated, would transition to full autonomous operation once air regulations are in place. —M.C.