Andrew Ng, co-founder of some of Alphabet Inc-owned Google's most prominent artificial intelligence projects, launches a new venture with iPhone assembler Foxconn to bring AI and so-called machine learning onto the factory floor. Consumers now experience AI mostly through image recognition to help categorize digital photographs and speech recognition that helps power digital voice assistants such as Apple Inc's Siri or Amazon.com But at a press briefing in San Francisco two days before Ng's Landing.ai Google Brain founder Andrew Ng said Foxconn has already signed up for his new firm, using AI for visual inspection in a factory's quality control efforts. Pictured, Chinese workers assemble electronic components at the Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn's factory in Shenzhen, in the southern Guangzhou province.

Three astronauts have landed back on Earth after nearly six months on board the International Space Station. A Russian Soyuz capsule containing Nasa's Randy Bresnik, Russia's Sergey Ryazanskiy and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency descended under a red-and-white parachute and landed on schedule at 2:37pm local time on the vast steppes outside of a remote town in Kazakhstan. The three were extracted from the capsule within 20 minutes and appeared to be in good condition. The spacecraft brought back Randy Bresnik from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Sergey Ryazanskiy from Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Italy's Paolo Nespoli with the European Space Agency. The capsule landed in the windswept and snow-covered steppe in Kazakhstan's central Karaganda region at 2.37 p.m. (0837 GMT).

Gargantuan Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn employs more than 1 million people and tens of thousands of robots making iPhones and other electronics. It has a reputation for cost cutting, including at the expense of its workers. Now, it's teaming up with an artificial-intelligence researcher who helped trigger Google's reorientation around machine learning in order to make its own factories more efficient. Andrew Ng was a Stanford professor when he joined Google in 2011 to work on a project that created software able to recognize cats--and a new corporate emphasis on AI at Google. He later led AI research at Chinese search engine Baidu.

"When big changes happen it is often because regulation, user preference and technology converge – mobile telephony is one example, the car another. We have picked the trends that we think are both illuminating and important to stay on top of ahead of the New Year," says Bjørn Taale Sandberg, Head of Telenor Research. Consumer-trends such as face recognition, on-demand services and 360-photos aside, what seismic shifts in the broader technology landscape might shake things up in 2018? Looking ahead, scientists and technology analysts at Telenor Group's research arm, Telenor Research, see seven tech trends coming our way: Facebook users are posting less and the amount of relevant information on the Facebook newsfeed is dropping, giving way to an increasing amount of professional and paid content – of varying relevance. Users are also likely becoming more critical as awareness rises around "fake news" seeping into their feeds.

More than 90% of cybersecurity professionals are concerned that hackers will use artificial intelligence (AI) in cyberattacks against their company that are more sophisticated and harder to detect, according to a new report from Webroot. AI has already proven to be both a benefit and a threat on the cybersecurity front: While the technology can help companies fill cybersecurity skills gaps and safeguard data, it also gives hackers a new tool for attack. In August, researchers created an AI that could modify malware to bypass machine learning antivirus software. Common cyberattacks such as phishing also become much more effective when they are powered by AI, according to ZDNet. Webroot surveyed 400 cybersecurity professionals at companies with 100 or more employees in the US and Japan.

Google is expanding its artificial intelligence, or AI research to China. The search giant said Wednesday that it is opening a facility, Google AI China Center, intended to help the company conduct AI research in the country and hire employees with backgrounds in machine learning. The research facility will be based in Beijing, where Google has an existing office. "Whether a breakthrough occurs in Silicon Valley, Beijing or anywhere else, it has the potential to make everyone's life better for the entire world," Fei-Fei Li, Google's head of AI for its cloud computing business, said in a blog post. "As an AI first company, this is an important part of our collective mission. And we want to work with the best AI talent, wherever that talent is, to achieve it."

Robots are already coming for our jobs, and now it looks like they're coming for our treasured cultural ceremonies, too. On Monday, the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology's Hubo robot carried the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics relay torch for a stretch of the relay in Daejon, South Korea. Even more impressively, as shown in the clip below from Arirang News, Hubo used a tool mounted on one of its other arms to cut through a wall and pass the torch through, all without accidentally setting anything on fire. According to Olympics news website Inside the Games, it's not the first robot in history to carry the torch--or even the first one in the 2018 relay. Earlier this year, an "undersea robotic craft helped carry the flame" for a separate stretch of the months-long relay, which involves some 7,500 volunteers.

What better stock to review first for robots and AI month than one of the most familiar names in the space: iRobot (IRBT)? For one, as mentioned, the company is familiar. I would reckon that pretty much everyone reading this either has a Roomba, knows someone who has one, or at the very least knows what it is! Secondly, the company has an extremely easy-to-understand business model. And third, iRobot is very much a "pure play" on the robotics trend, in a space where a lot of the advancements are taking place within the "skunk works" divisions of larger, more diversified companies that make their money in other ways.

NAGOYA – In the first test of its kind in Japan, a remote-controlled vehicle was tested Thursday on a public road in Aichi Prefecture, home to Toyota Motor Corp. and other auto firms. For the government-conducted test, the minivan traveled along a 700-meter road in the town of Kota with no one in the driver's seat and an assistant in the passenger seat. The route and traffic signs had been "memorized" by the system ahead of time. A member of the testing team operated the minivan remotely from nearby Kota Community Hall with the aid of video transmitted by the van's onboard camera. The assistant was present to stop the car in case of an emergency.

The global retail analytics market is expected to grow by $5.1 billion by 2022 to an estimated $8.64 billion. This extraordinary growth will largely be driven by the use of data science in disrupting the retail sector -- changing the way retailers do business online and offline, from the way stores organise their layout to hyper-targeted and optimised pricing and offers. In the UK alone, the retail sector is worth more than £368bn, employs 2.3 million people and accounts for 1/3 of all consumer spending. Retail generates huge amounts of highly valuable data that businesses are only recently starting to utilise. However, recent reports suggest that the sector is struggling, due to changing spending habits and shifting shopping trends.