CAIRO – A French ship searching the Mediterranean has detected black box signals from a missing EgyptAir flight in the waters between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast, a development that could help solve the mystery of why the aircraft crashed into the sea last month, killing all 66 on board. The discovery, announced Wednesday, could help guide search teams to the wreckage and the flight's data and cockpit voice recorders, which if retrieved unharmed could reveal whether a mechanical fault or a hijacking or bomb caused the disaster. In the two weeks since Flight 804 disappeared from radar en route to Cairo from Paris, only small pieces of debris and human remains have been retrieved from the crash site. No terrorist group has claimed responsibility, though Egypt's civil aviation minister, Sherif Fathi, has said terrorism is a more likely cause than equipment failure or some other catastrophic event. The flight recorders will be critical to determining whether the disaster was caused by an accident or a deliberate act.

Boston Dynamics' robots are at their best on shaky ground. The wobbly BigDog, its larger LS3 sibling, and the humanoid Atlas all shamble forward and recover from falls. The company, for sale by its owner Google, is now looking for a buyer, and now it appears they may have finally found a firm place to land: Toyota. The Tokyo-based company has nursing care and medical robots in development, in addition to working on self-driving cars. Toyota could add up to 300 personnel to its robotics division with the acquisitions, the report said.

A French ship searching the Mediterranean has detected black box signals from a missing EgyptAir flight in the waters between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast, a development that could help solve the mystery of why the aircraft crashed into the sea last month, killing all 66 on board. The discovery, announced Wednesday, could help guide search teams to the wreckage and the flight's data and cockpit voice recorders, which if retrieved unharmed could reveal whether a mechanical fault or a hijacking or bomb caused the disaster. In the two weeks since Flight 804 disappeared from radar en route to Cairo from Paris, only small pieces of debris and human remains have been retrieved from the crash site. No terrorist group has claimed responsibility, though Egypt's civil aviation minister, Sherif Fathi, has said terrorism is a more likely cause than equipment failure or some other catastrophic event. The flight recorders will be critical to determining whether the disaster was caused by an accident or a deliberate act.

Artificial intelligence (AI) makes difficult tasks possible, such as sorting and recognising patterns in incredibly large data sets. The most challenging problems often have unexpected input and are often referred to as AI-compete or AI-difficult, implying the need for human-like computation. While some might think of AI as technology mostly used for complex visual tasks – or even as a far-fetched concept only found in science fiction – it's used in more ways than most people realise. That raises the question: could modern society get by without this fast-growing technology? Depending on the source, some claim AI has been around since ancient times, when the Greeks had myths about robots, and engineers from Egypt and China built automatons.

U.S. officials also said that American forces provided some support to an African-led military operation in Somalia that targeted Mohamed Dulyadayn, who is believed to be the mastermind of the Garissa University attack in Kenya in April 2015 which killed 148 people.

A Somali policeman holds his position during a firefight with Islamist al-Shabab gunmen in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Nov. 1, 2015. WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon says a U.S. drone strike on Friday targeted a senior military commander of al-Shabab in Somalia. U.S. officials say they can't confirm yet if he was killed. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook says the strike targeted Abdullahi Haji Da'ud, a key coordinator of al-Shabab attacks in the region. Da'ud also previously served as head of the group's intelligence.

A shirt and cap that can diagnose epilepsy quickly and easily has been approved for use by European health services, including the UK's NHS. Epileptic seizures are the result of excessive electrical discharges in the brain. The World Health Organization estimates that over 50 million people worldwide have the condition, including 6 million in Europe, making it one of the world's most common serious neurological conditions. Brain implants and apps have been developed to warn of oncoming seizures. But to diagnose the condition, someone must typically have a seizure recorded by an EEG machine in a hospital – with sensors and wires attached to the scalp.

The future of the way we work will be put under the spotlight by some of the leading minds in technology and computing at the International Festival for Business 2016 (IFB2016). The advancement of Artificial Intelligence and its use in modern life has prompted debate on whether men and women will be needed to work in business in years to come. Scientists have created robots who can do cognitive work and the nightmarish future of androids ruling the planet with brutal oppression has long been a science fiction storyline. A panel which will include a brain specialist, a tech lawyer, a technology expert and a union leader will explore the possibility of humans becoming obsolete in the workplace in reality. The discussion, Man and Woman vs Machine: Is AI Going to Take Your Job?' will take over the Blue Skies Stage in the Liverpool Exhibition Centre on Thursday June 16.

It's a weird feeling, cruising around Silicon Valley in a car driven by no one. I am in the back seat of one of Google's self-driving cars – a converted Lexus SUV with lasers, radar and low-res cameras strapped to the roof and fenders – as it manoeuvres the streets of Mountain View, California, not far from Google's headquarters. I grew up about eight kilometres from here and remember riding around on these same streets on a Schwinn Sting-Ray. Now, I am riding an algorithm, you might say – a mathematical equation, which, written as computer code, controls the Lexus. The car does not feel dangerous, nor does it feel like it is being driven by a human. It rolls to a full stop at stop signs, veers too far away from a delivery van, taps the brakes for no apparent reason as we pass a line of parked cars. I wonder if the flaw is in me, not the car: Is it reacting to something I can't see? The car is capable of detecting the motion of a cat, or a car crossing the street hundreds of metres away in any direction, day or night (snow and fog can be another matter). "It sees much better than a human being," Dmitri Dolgov, the lead software engineer for Google's self-driving-car project, says proudly. He is sitting behind the wheel, his hands on his lap. As we stop at the intersection, waiting for a left turn, I glance over at a laptop in the passenger seat that provides a real-time look at how the car interprets its surroundings. On it, I see a gridlike world of colourful objects – cars, trucks, bicyclists, pedestrians – drifting by in a video-game-like tableau. Each sensor offers a different view – the lasers provide three-dimensional depth, the cameras identify road signs, turn signals, colours and lights. The computer in the back processes all this information in real time, gauging the speed of oncoming traffic, making a judgment about when it is OK to make a left turn. Waiting for the car to make that decision is a spooky moment. I am betting my life that one of the coders who worked on the algorithm for when it's safe to make a left-hand turn in traffic had not had a fight with his girlfriend (or boyfriend) the night before and screwed up the code.

Czech writer Karel?apek's 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which famously introduced the word robot to the world, begins with synthetic humans--the robots from the title--toiling in factories to produce low-cost goods. It ends with those same robots killing off the human race. Thus was born an enduring plot line in science fiction: robots spiraling out of control and turning into unstoppable killing machines. Twentieth-century literature and film would go on to bring us many more examples of robots wreaking havoc on the world, with Hollywood notably turning the theme into blockbuster franchises like The Matrix, Transformers, and The Terminator. Lately, fears of fiction turning to fact have been stoked by a confluence of developments, including important advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, along with the widespread use of combat drones and ground robots in Iraq and Afghanistan. The world's most powerful militaries are now developing ever more intelligent weapons, with varying degrees of autonomy and lethality.