An architect hoping to rebuild war-torn Mosul, Iraq, has proposed a series of stunning 3D-printed bridges that would transform city using its own building debris into construction materials. Architect Vincent Callebaut is the brainchild behind'The 5 Farming Bridges', which features 3D-printed housing units in the form of articulated spiders over the Tigris River. Five 3D printers could construct 30 houses per day, or nearly 55,000 housing units in five years spread over the five bridges. The concept was a winning project of the Rifat Chadirji Prize Competition, 'Rebuilding Iraq's Liberated Areas: Mosul's Housing'. Architect Vincent Callebaut is the brainchild behind'The 5 Farming Bridges', which features 3D-printed housing units in the form of articulated spiders over the Tigris River in Mosul, Iraq The concept was a winning project of the Rifat Chadirji Prize Competition, 'Rebuilding Iraq's Liberated Areas: Mosul's Housing' Mosul, Iraq's second city, was retaken from IS in July after a massive months-long offensive.

Sony shares rose more than 11% on Wednesday to a nine-year-high. The new Aibo features improved artificial intelligence software and enhanced motors and sensors that help the robot better resemble a real dog. The company said each device will develop unique behavior patterns depending on owner interactions and can work with other internet-connected electronics. The Aibo will be released first in Japan and cost ¥198,000 (about $1,700). New owners will also need to pay about $25 a month for cloud services to provide their devices with remote updates for things like teaching the robot new tricks.

Good morning, or afternoon, wherever you are. Here's a roundup of recent AI developments on top of everything else we've reported over the past week or so. Researchers at Nvidia have developed and described a new way to train generative adversarial networks (GANs) in a more stable manner to generate a series of, what appears at first glance, seemingly realistic convincing photos. In other words, this is a neural network that can produce, at a decent resolution, fairly plausible photos of things – from couches to buildings – on demand from scratch. The computer can invent or fabricate scenes for you or anyone else, from a description: pretty much on-demand fake news. Some of the different types of images generated by Nvidia's software ... Click to enlarge.

HPE has just announced a bunch of new things to help organisations everywhere tap into AI. The new offerings include an integrated hardware-software solution, a set of guiding tools, a research collaboration platform, and a place to get access to the latest expertise. Deep Learning, as a subset of AI, is key for things like facial or voice recognition, image classification or other challenging tasks. It requires a high performance compute infrastructure to build and train learning models that can handle vasts amount of data, and that is something many organisations lack. This is also the core problem HPE is trying to solve with its new solution.

Artificial Intelligence is changing the way we think of technology. It is radically changing the various aspects of our daily life. Companies are now significantly making investments in AI to boost their future businesses. IDC estimated that the AI market will grow from $8 billion in 2016 to more than $47 billion in 2020. "Artificial Intelligence" today includes a variety of technologies and tools, some time-tested, others relatively new.

Sony Corp. said Wednesday it will resurrect Aibo, the robot-dog that inspired a cult following even after it was discontinued over a decade ago. The electronics giant said the new, artificial intelligence-powered Aibo is set to go on sale on Jan. 11 for ¥198,000. New owners will also need to dish out ¥90,000 (or ¥2,500 a month) for a minimum three-year plan to access cloud-based services that will allow the robot-dog to learn tricks and get accustomed to its environment. "Today I am pleased to introduce an entertainment robot we have been developing for the past year and a half that's worthy of love and is a delight to nurture through emotional connections with people," Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai said during a news conference at the company's headquarters in Tokyo. The original Aibo was released in 1999 and was discontinued in 2006.

The state of public transportation has arrived at an exciting juncture. It seems that technologies have finally advanced to the point that truly never before seen solutions are starting to pop up all around the world. We're seeing the likes of autonomous taxis, flying taxis, and high-speed trains like the "mag-lev limo" concept, which promises to deliver travelers from New York to Beijing in 2 hours' time. Another option is readying itself to transport people around the Chinese city of Zhuzhou as soon as 2018. The "smart bus" is being developed by Chinese rail transit firm CRRC to combine the economical ease of bus systems with the modularity of subway trains, as well as the convenience and safety of autonomy.

Japan's Sony Corp said on Wednesday it has brought back AIBO more than a decade since it last made the robotic dog, as the electronics and entertainment firm seeks to rebuild its reputation for innovation after years of restructuring. The announcement comes a day after Sony confirmed its renaissance by forecasting its highest-ever profit this financial year, sending its shares surging to a nine-year high. And it confirms previous reports speculating that Sony would revive the "pet project." AIBO is billed as a pet that behaves like a real dog using artificial intelligence (AI) to learn and interact with its owner and surroundings. The upgrade sees AIBO equipped with new sensing and movement technologies as well as far more advanced AI backed by cloud computing to develop the dog's personality. Sales begin in Japan in January for 198,000 yen ($1,739).

You started off in e-commerce. Your vision is that customers will meet, work and live at Alibaba, which is pretty much everything. Where does the ambition end, and what's the unifying vision? TSAI: Since 1999, we started the company with a mission to make it easy to do business anywhere. We want to make sure we help businesses, companies, especially small companies, to be able to reach their markets and reach consumers.

After more than a decade away, Sony's Aibo pet robot is making a return. The original dog-like robot launched in 1999, while Sony says its followup is "capable of forming an emotional bond with members of the household while providing them with love, affection, and the joy of nurturing and raising a companion." Its OLED eyes allow for "nuanced" expressions, while new actuators allow its body to move smoothly along 22 axes. Pre-orders for the new robot begin tonight via Sony's online store in Japan for 179,000 yen (about $1,739 US), with shipments scheduled to begin on January 11th. Of course, because this is 2017, not only is the new Aibo powered by AI (that learns and develops a unique personality over time) but it's also connected to the cloud.