LOS ANGELES – Microsoft on Sunday unveiled Xbox One X -- billing it as the most powerful video console ever made, and escalating a battle with market king PlayStation. The $499 product was built with the muscle for seamless play on ultra-high definition 4K televisions and will be available worldwide on Nov. 7, according to Xbox team leader Phil Spencer. He introduced the much anticipated Xbox One X, called Scorpio during development, at a Microsoft event ahead of the official opening of the major Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Aiming at the hearts of gamers, Microsoft also showed off 42 coming games, with 22 titles being tailored for exclusive play on Xbox One consoles. Independent publishers tend to make blockbuster titles available for play on Xbox, PlayStation and personal computer hardware in an effort to sell creations to as broad an audience as possible.

Assassin's Creed Origins will tell you the story of how the assassin brotherhood began, with Bayek, an Egyptian sherif. While the rumors of an Egypt-based title have been around for weeks, we finally got to see how that will shape the stealthy-stabby series. Besides a cinematic introduction, we also got to watch a few minutes of in-game footage, with Bayek on horseback, with his trusty bow, scouting an Egyptian town that appears more lively and richer than its predecessors. The protagonist also taps into a clever little ability that gives him (literally) a birds-eye view of areas in-game, without having to scale towers and walls. Battles look relatively unchanged from older Assassin's Creed titles, although arrows and other projectile weapons appear to stick around longer in the sides of your enemies and wildlife.

One of my very good friends, who hadn't been in a relationship for the longest time has been celebrating his six month relationship anniversary all of this month. And he's gone all out, from proposing, to travel around the country and a major party with friends and family. After the said party, I was definitely pumped up to celebrate things in my life that have lasted beyond the first day despite all odds… So I got home and partitioned my notebook into four parts then in between beer breaks took time to fill in the four slots as a way to celebrate consistency. The last two quadrants were actually really hard to fill and are still a work in progress. The first thing I wrote down was Nairobi WiMLDS which will have lasted six months, this month!! Nairobi WiMLDS, is a community of women (and men) with interests or working in data science.

The world's most pampered rhino is having his mudpack applied by hand. Sudan the veteran northern white rhinoceros stands placidly and allows his personal assistant to rub dollops of wet clay into his hide, to moisturise his skin and keep insects away. 'He loves that,' says Zach, his 24-hour-a-day PA. Zach lives next door to the rhino enclosure, permanently on call in case His Lordship should require anything. And Sudan is very high maintenance – he used to have a man whose job was rubbing oil into his hooves.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. We've written about extra robot arms for humans in the past, but these are more complicated and perhaps capable than most: I'm not completely sold on the control system here, since it essentially means you're trading the use of your legs for the use of some extra arms. If this isn't enough reason to get a RoboThespian, I don't know what is: ROBOTIS was running this demo at ICRA as well; the first TurtleBot is using its laser for person-detection and following, while the other TurtleBots are wirelessly following the first.

We hear again and again that AI and robots are going to take away human jobs. My broken kettle says otherwise. Yesterday, I set my electric kettle down awkwardly on the edge of the sink. It toppled over and smashed. I searched Amazon for a replacement, found several that were highly rated, and within minutes had placed an order.

A convention center packed with video games large and small. E3 is a magical week for anyone who likes to spend their free time pushing buttons on plastic gamepads. It's like the Super Bowl, the Oscars and a presidential election rolled into one. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo stand out as the hardware heavyweights, while EA, Ubisoft and Bethesda lead the third-party-publisher tussle. Throw in Square Enix, Activision and the occasional Capcom appearance, and you have the makings of a truly special show.

In the event of a natural disaster that disrupts phone and Internet systems over a wide area, autonomous aircraft could potentially hover over affected regions, carrying communications payloads that provide temporary telecommunications coverage to those in need. However, such unpiloted aerial vehicles, or UAVs, are often expensive to operate, and can only remain in the air for a day or two, as is the case with most autonomous surveillance aircraft operated by the U.S. Air Force. Providing adequate and persistent coverage would require a relay of multiple aircraft, landing and refueling around the clock, with operational costs of thousands of dollars per hour, per vehicle. Now a team of MIT engineers has come up with a much less expensive UAV design that can hover for longer durations to provide wide-ranging communications support. The researchers designed, built, and tested a UAV resembling a thin glider with a 24-foot wingspan.

They have black skin featuring large yellow spots ontheir back and head. These spots are a warning coloration meant to keep predators atbay. Full-grown salamanders can be over a foot in length.Far eastern fire salamanders live in subtropical shrubland and forests near rivers orother freshwater bodies. They spend most of their life on land, but lay their eggs inthe water. They subsist mostly on a diet of insects, worms, and small crustaceans, butoccasionally eat other salamanders.

E3, the video game industry trade show, is dead. Long live E3 the consumer-facing show. Faced with an adapt-or-die situation the ESA's chosen to adapt, inviting 15,000 members of the public to attend the 2017 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles next week. Maybe we'll see you there. For the rest of you, the next week will pass as usual, in a flurry of game announcements, demos, and trailers--and Microsoft's grand reveal of Xbox's Project Scorpio console.