Baidu Inc., China's largest search provider, forecast sales below analysts' estimates in the current quarter, dogged by government-imposed restrictions and rising competition for its advertising business. The company projected revenue of 20.47 billion yuan ($2.97 billion) to 20.98 billion yuan, compared with analysts' average estimate of 20.94 yuan. Shares declined as much as 6.3 percent in extended trading after closing at $187.86 in New York. Baidu is entering a critical year after sales in 2016 grew at their slowest pace on record, depressed by competition from the likes of Sogou as well as regulatory curbs on advertising content. The death of a 21-year-old student who sought unconventional medical treatment through ads on its search engine triggered a government probe and subsequent restrictions.

The'sex tech' market is worth an estimated $30.6bn - and across the globe, firms are racing to create a radical new type of robot they say could change sex forever. From AI personalities capable of holding a conversation to models with a functioning G-spot, firms are hoping consumers will pay up to $15,000 for a sex doll that never says no. Among the most impressive is RealDoll's Harmony - an artificial intelligence based sex bot that can hold conversations, remember what she's told and even has a customizable personality. The doll's AI can learn about its user to'create an engaging simulation of a relationship,' according to the company behind the life-like bot. The sex doll's AI will then continue to learn about its user to'create an engaging simulation of a relationship,' according to the company behind the life-like bot.

Facebook is set to admit it has become a battleground for governments intent on manipulating public opinion in other countries for geopolitical reasons, according to a new report. The social network will outline plans to combat what it calls coordinated "information operations" funded by nations, in a report that will be published this evening, according to Reuters. The information operations go beyond fake news, with paid professionals and government employees using false accounts to maximise the circulation of hoax, inflammatory and racist stories. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Chances are, you have a Mario Kart memory. Whether it's huddled around an N64, firing a Blue Shell at your devious older brother, or playing wirelessly with friends on your various Nintendo DS's, almost everyone has, at some stage, been obsessed with Nintendo's flagship racer. With Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, we've hit peak Mario Kart. Whether you played the series on DS, N64, Wii, SNES, Gamecube, or GBA, Deluxe feels like meeting an old friend you haven't spoken to in years, only they're much better looking than you remember. Despite being released on Wii U three years ago, this updated version feels fresh, having been given a new lick of paint and featuring the additional DLC previously added to the core game.

Nintendo is selling so many Switches that it might have saved its bottom line. The hybrid console is making a billion dollars more than it did in the same period last year, all off the back of the huge sales of the device. The Switch was described at a risk at launch but it has paid off – with demand so high that it is almost impossible to actually get hold of the device. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Included in the new technology are machine-gun toting robots that charge up the beaches as advance assault, as well as speedboats that instantly transformed into small stealthy submarines diving beneath the surface to avoid detection. For the past two weeks, the Navy and Marine Corps have been quietly testing about 50 new fascinating technologies out at Camp Pendleton, at the Ship-to-Shore Maneuver Exploration and Experimentation Advanced Naval Technology Exercise 2017, in California. The exercise is investigating how the military can leverage the latest technological advances for ship-to-the-shore, or the space between the Naval ship and the beach where they could potentially land. Sailors and Marines have been experimenting with the technology and evaluating the wide range of sea, air and land innovations in a variety of realistic scenarios. The tech includes amphibious vehicles, but also drones like quadcopters and potentially weapon-wielding ground robots.

Videos of two murders have been uploaded to Facebook and watched by hundreds of thousands of users over the past two weeks. Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to do more to prevent anything similar happening again, but the problem can't simply be blamed on Facebook. One of the social network's biggest responsibilities is moderating users' posts, but the sheer amount of content that's uploaded to the site every day makes this an impossible task for people alone. Facebook's mysterious algorithms cut through the noise to filter out what's acceptable and what's not acceptable, saving the site's human moderators from innocent posts and allowing them to focus on a much more manageable sample of data. Every so often, something unacceptable gets through that AI filter system.

A robotic arm is sublime at stacking boxes on a production line, but workplace robots struggle with social niceties. Now researchers are teaching robots the right way to act in social situations in the hope of making it easier for humans and robots to work together. Human social interactions are full of subtle cues that are tricky for robots to interpret, says Song-Chun Zhu at the University of California, Los Angeles. So Zhu and his team set out to teach Baxter – an industrial robot designed to work alongside humans – to respond to social cues in a more natural way. The team trained Baxter on videos of humans shaking hands, waving, helping each other up, passing over a cup and high-fiving.

How can we create robots that can carry out important tasks in dangerous environments? Machine learning is supporting advances in the field of robotics. To find out more, we talked to Dr Rustam Stolkin, Royal Society Industry Fellow for Nuclear Robotics, Professor of Robotics at the University of Birmingham, and Director at A.R.M Robotics Ltd, about his work combining machine learning and robotics to create practical solutions to nuclear problems. There are many definitions of engineering, but the one I like is "the creation of artefacts for the benefit of mankind". Engineering is a way of using science to be creative and to create novel technologies which can bring major societal and economic benefit.

The most recognizable name in drones has reportedly stepped in to help the United States in its ongoing war on terror. As The Register reports today, Shenzhen-based DJI -- makers of the ever-popular Phantom and Inspire series quadcopters -- quietly created software-based no-fly zones over large parts of Iraq and Syria where ISIS fighters have been known to strap improvised bombs to commercial drones. The NFZs were first spotted by drone threat analyst Kevin Finisterre of Department 13, who noticed the company had updated its DJI Go piloting and photography app to include a number of geofenced areas in the region. DJI already maintains a large database of NFZs to prevent hobbyists from straying into airport flight paths, military bases, historic sites, sporting arenas and other places where drones are explicitly banned. The new geofenced areas, however, only appeared in late February -- around the same time Finisterre notes that Iraqi troops backed by the US were mounting an offensive in Mosul.