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The smart way to make money during a gold rush is to sell shovels to the gold
prospectors. Now researchers at the University of California in Berkeley want to
pull off a similar trick with nanotechnologists. Ronald Fearing and his
colleagues have developed an automated factory that makes micromachines with no
human help. Using two miniature computer-controlled grippers and a diminutive
laser welder, it can pick up, manipulate and join components just 50 micrometres
long. Force feedback sensors on the grippers allow the system to manoeuvre
components accurately with only two points of contact. Until now, the fiddly
work was…