When Yoichi Masuda set out to design a new legged robot, he found inspiration in the Martian Tripods from the classic sci-fi novel "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells. A three-legged configuration seems to offer some advantages when it comes to walking and balancing, and Masuda became curious about the absence of three-legged animals in nature. Are there evolutionary factors that explain why we haven't seen any? And if three-legged creatures existed, could there be a universal principle of walking locomotion, common for bipeds, tripeds, and quadrupeds? To explore those questions, Masuda and his colleagues at Osaka University built a three-legged robot named Martian.

Chinese parts giant Foxconn will launch a second U.S. facility in Michigan that will focus on self-driving car development, the South China Morning Post reports. Foxconn founder Terry Gou said the advanced state of self-driving car development was part of the reason why the company made its move into Michigan. "Automotive development in the US is still more advanced than China," Gou said, according to the Post. Few details were available on the facility's cost, timeline to launch or exact scope. The news follows Foxconn's previous announcement that it was exploring making $10 billion in U.S. investments throughout the midwest.

With technological convenience, comes the price of radical uncertainty in a financial world in disruption. You might not know it yet, but financial services, banking, investment and the economy itself, all are on the verge of a new model. In the wake of events such as Wells Fargo sales tactics, phoney account creations and pushy sales associates across financial industries, that practically amount to fraud, North American's don't trust banks like they once did. Legacy banks, like legacy retailers, need to adjust to their customers and clients. Artificial intelligence is all about enabling a new level of convenience for consumers.

Editor's note: Throughout 2017, NextBillion is organizing content around a monthly theme, dedicating special attention to a specific sector alongside our broader coverage. This post is part of our focus on entrepreneurship for the month of July. The first part of that dystopian vision has already come to pass, as the constant procession of new AI and robotics breakthroughs in recent years demonstrates (see the links above). The second part – the mass job losses – has fortunately not yet arrived. But if you believe the emerging consensus of the economists and futurists who study these things, it won't be long before it does.

An artificially intelligent robot that can understand sarcasm in social media posts better than humans has been developed by scientists. The algorithm can decipher the tone of tweets, and researchers say it could be used to tackle online abuse. By interpreting emoji used alongside a post's text, the robot can understand emotional subtext and identify if sarcasm is being used. A robot that can understand sarcasm in social media posts better than humans has been developed by scientists. By interpreting emoji used alongside a post's text, the AI can understand emotional subtext and identify if sarcasm is being used (stock image) Researchers created the AI, known as DeepMoji, by feeding it 1.2 billion tweets. The robot analysed each tweet to understand how 64 popular emoji were used in them to express meaning.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. Artificial intelligence will create disruptive change on the same level and scale as last century's industrial revolution. There will be upheaval in business, for workers, and to societies, but, like other great technological advancements, the opportunities and benefits will dramatically outweigh the repercussions from this major shift.

The violent android may not be far from reality in China, where'legal robots' are being used in one province to help decide thousands of cases. The machines stand three-feet-tall (90 centimetres) and are used to review cases, check facts, and offer sentencing opinions. 'Legal robots' (pictured) are being used in China to help decide thousands of cases. China's case management robots are not the first machines designed to help with legal issues. DoNotPay, a robot that has been helping people to dispute around 160,000 parking tickets since 2015, expanded its capabilities last month.

'Legal robots' have been deployed on thousands of cases in China to help decide sentencing. The robots - which are about three feet tall and have heads shaped like toasters - review documents and identify problems with cases. They also advise on sentencing, and can generate arrest warrants and "approve indictments", said prosecutors in the eastern province of Jiangsu, where the robots are being piloted. Almost 15,000 legal cases have been reviewed by the robots since they were deployed last September, officials said at a press conference this week. They have detected issues and corrected mistakes in more than half the cases, and 541 convictions were commuted.

Aramex, the Dubai-based international logistics and transportation company, on Monday launched its new artificial intelligence-enabled chatbot on Facebook Messenger. Named "Aramex Bot", the service enables personalised, scalable conversations with customers about shipment-related queries and different service offerings. "Aramex Bot provides users with a convenient way to easily find Aramex nearest locations, track shipments and share preferred delivery location. It also offers enables customers in the UAE to schedule a delivery for personalised shipments and e-commerce parcels.," "The chatbot service will soon be available to all Aramex customers across the Middle East."

In his general session at 19th Cloud Expo, Manish Dixit, VP of Product and Engineering at Dice, discussed how Dice leverages data insights and tools to help both tech professionals and recruiters better understand how skills relate to each other and which skills are in high demand using interactive visualizations and salary indicator tools to maximize earning potential. As the leader of the Product, Engineering and Data Sciences team at Dice, he takes a metrics-driven approach to management. His experience in building and managing high performance teams was built throughout his experience at Oracle, Sun Microsystems and SocialEkwity. Under his direction Dice continues to lead the recruitment category in skills mapping and leveraging data science to both advise companies as they examine their internal resources and help tech pros maximize their earning potential by understanding the value of their skills. Manish has over 20 years of experience developing products and leading technical / engineering teams.