In this interview series, we're meeting some of the AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants to find out more about their research. Minghong Geng recently completed his PhD and is now working as a postdoctoral researcher at Singapore Management University. We sat down to discuss his research on multi-agent systems. Firstly, congratulations on completing your PhD! What is the general topic of your research? I work on multi-agent systems.

RoboCup is an international competition that promotes and advances robotics and AI through the challenges presented by its various leagues. We got the chance to sit down with Professor Manuela Veloso, one of RoboCup's founders, to find out more about how it all started, how the community has grown over the years, and the vision for the future. I think it would be very interesting to go right back to the beginning and hear how RoboCup got started. What was the initial idea, and how did it get set up? So we are talking about the mid-90s. In terms of the research in those days, it was the beginning of the internet and many AI and computer science researchers were focused on the internet, first on sophisticated search algorithms, on natural language understanding, on information retrieval, and then on software agents and machine learning applied to digital information. From what I recall, there was a smaller group of researchers who were interested in actual, physical robots, and in particular in AI and robotics.

Amazon Alexa+ introduced voice-powered food ordering through Uber Eats and Grubhub, letting users build and modify delivery orders hands-free on Echo devices.

Taylor Sheridan's new war movie gets major update, legendary director attached LPGA star Nelly Korda sizzles on the beach, Dems won't stop dancing & Gia Duddy whips up a bikini lunch Paige Spiranac provides an update on'Great Cans' saga, fan's still MIA but others have picked up the slack Ivanka Trump has the angry libs on high alert as she slides into an amazing dress, Waffle House chaos & MEAT! Donald Trump makes odd'hair' comment to Danica Patrick at TPUSA event Islamabad enters'red zone' lockdown ahead of expected US-Iran peace talks Holocaust survivor known as'Crossing Guard Diva' goes viral for glam style House Ethics Committee weighs action against Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick'Sinister' links suspected in mysterious deaths of scientists Welcome to the numerous new Screencaps readers - trust me, you have to give this column two weeks to understand what's going on If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of new Screencaps readers who found this column on Monday, welcome back. You're about to become hooked. Just go ahead and clear your daily schedule at 9 a.m. for America's Best Daily Column, as named by the readers who've been with me for years. In some cases, readers have been with me for over a decade. This column is their talk radio.

John Ternus ascends the throne - but Cook will stay on to manage tech giant's foreign policy as executive chair Tim Cook becomes Apple's elder statesman Apple announced late on Monday that Tim Cook will step down as CEO but will not leave the iPhone maker. Head of hardware engineering John Ternus will succeed him on 1 September. "I love Apple with all of my being," Cook said in a press release announcing his succession. Cook, 65, who succeeded Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, has been CEO since 2011. With a reputation for operational and supply chain management, he has overseen the global expansion of the company and its steady series of new, updated devices, though he never attained the same visionary status as Jobs.

This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift'Super Dumb' Men A med student says he's made thousands of dollars selling photos and videos of a young conservative woman he created using generative tools. Like many medical school students, Sam was broke. The 22-year-old aspiring orthopedic surgeon from northern India got some money from his parents, but he says he spent most of it subsidizing his licensing exams, and he's still saving up to hopefully emigrate to the US after graduation. So he started searching for ways to make additional money online. Sam, who requested a pseudonym to avoid jeopardizing his medical career and immigration status, tried a few things, with varying degrees of legitimacy and success.

Japanet is expanding its venture capital fund with Pegasus Tech Ventures, after early investments in firms like SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI showed strong growth. Japanese home shopping company Japanet is expanding its venture capital fund with San Jose-based Pegasus Tech Ventures, following the success of early bets in SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI. The Nagasaki-based retailer known for infomercials targeting seniors in aging Japan will allocate $200 million to the fund, up from an initial $50 million in 2021, following significant growth" in investments so far, the companies said in a statement. The fund, of which Pegasus is general partner, will focus on areas such as generative AI, robotics and space technology. Its Japan portfolio includes startup Aillis, which seeks to use artificial intelligence to analyze medical scans. Asian companies have struggled to win stakes in promising startups in Silicon Valley, hampered by a lack of personal connections and reputation for slow decision-making. Pegasus also manages startup investments on behalf of Toyota Motor-affiliate Aisin, Japanese chemical maker Denka, Taiwan's Asustek Computer and Acer and Indonesia's pharma company Kalbe Farma. Everybody wants a piece of the Silicon Valley AI action," Pegasus Chief Executive Officer Anis Uzzaman said on a video call.

Ashlin McCourt clocks up 60 hours a week working as a civil servant, a waitress and a baker because life's so expensive, she says. The UK unemployment rate stands at 4.9% - however, increasing numbers of those in work are juggling more than one job. While working in multiple jobs and side hustles has long been a needs must for many households to manage the cost of living, there are now a record 1.35 million adults working at least two jobs. It is mostly Gen Z - adults aged up to 29 - driving this poly-employment trend - according to Deputy, a global workforce management platform, which analysed more than 20 million shifts done by over 300,000 UK workers. For 28-year-old Ashlin from Northern Ireland, having more than one job seems normal.

Attendees at the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, China, take pictures of various service robots on display. At the world's largest trade show, it's not just the clientele that had a different look this year. Despite the near absence of buyers wearing a traditional Arab headdress and robe at the Canton Fair, a vast showcase that started last week in China's southern metropolis of Guangzhou, a brash new generation of tech companies stood out just as much. Few wanted to dwell on the war. Even as the conflict in the Middle East once more fractures global commerce, interviews with more than a dozen exporters at the fair found many were already eager to look beyond the hostilities blamed for the worst energy disruption in generations.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by several former employees of OpenAI. Amazon is investing an additional $5 billion in Anthropic, and may inject $20 billion more over time, a deal that deepens the companies' ties in an increasingly competitive artificial intelligence industry. Anthropic, which makes the Claude chatbot and coding tool, plans to spend more than $100 billion over the next 10 years on Amazon's cloud technologies and chips, the companies said in a statement on Monday. Amazon shares gained about 3% on the news in extended trading. Amazon was already one of Anthropic's biggest backers, with prior investments totaling $8 billion.