If the idea of a driverless car is still too much for you then what about robots in your favourite restaurant?

Building on work done by robotics researchers here in Oxford, a team of scientists from Austin, Texas has built a robot that learns to cook by watching YouTube videos.

Increasingly, humanoid cooks are flipping hamburgers in restaurants around the world, and in China they have already started using robots to serve food to customers as well as play sous chef.

This robotic reality might not be altogether too far from our Oxfordshire doorsteps either.

Last week the University of Oxford announced that it had won a grant of more than £15 million in order to build a new state of the art facility.

The Remote Application in Challenging Environment (RACE) building will be based at Culham and will be leading the development of robotic arms for use on earth and in space.

The RACE building is likely to yield 300 new jobs, is linked in with local colleges and is part of a huge drive to make Oxfordshire a world-leading centre for science, technology, engineering and innovation excellence.

So when your next Ben’s cookie is bagged by a robot, remember, it’s 2015!

The year where we are, by official Back to The Future standards, in “The Future”!

Therefore it seems only fitting that my waiter should be a widget.

Just hold the engine oil with that!

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