Computers are really, really good at recognizing faces. Refined through work on millions of uploaded and tagged faces at sites like Facebook and elsewhere, algorithms that identify faces can place people in locations based just on a photograph. Sometimes that's helpful, like figuring out who that obscured groomsmen is in the back of a wedding picture. For people who don't want to be found, or just enjoy the previously unquestioned ability to travel without being tracked, facial recognition poses a risk. As a solution, Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NIII) created glasses that make faces unreadable to machines.

Looking back, Google's emergence as a robotics powerhouse seems obvious--and inevitable. First came the scattered hires of roboticists and the release of self-driving cars into Bay Area traffic. Then, the search giant reportedly bought two humanoid HUBO robots from South Korean university KAIST. But it wasn't until December's revelation that Google had acquired eight robotics companies--including Boston Dynamics, maker of BigDog, WildCat and a stable of other astonishing Pentagon-funded bots--that it became clear: Google means to build robots. Although the prospect of merging Google's insatiable appetite for data with sprinting, leaping hardware has inspired an unsurprising battery of Skynet jokes, the response among roboticists has been overwhelmingly positive.

Meier's open-source software is constantly evolving as it is applied in different contexts. For example, it was used to create maps showing population displacement during the humanitarian crisis in Libya. Natural disasters and political unrest trigger torrents of tweets and posts--chaotic snippets of what could be valuable information. Patrick Meier, director of social innovation at the Qatar Computing Research Institute, applies artificial intelligence to this crowdsourced data, organizing digital photos and messages into dynamic maps that can guide real-world relief efforts. Popular Science:__ You work in crisis mapping--what is that exactly?

Cognitive science is a term that covers quite the broad range of disciplines. It ranges from philosophy to linguistics to neuroscience. It also--and perhaps most pertinently--includes artificial intelligence and psychology. AI, obviously, is needed in most video games to make them compelling, otherwise enemies would just stand there or walk in straight lines into walls and down wells. AI is what powers everything in a video game that doesn't involve predetermined equations (read: physics) or your direct input.

In robotics, three hands are better than one, in the form of a device that has been developed by Intelligent Automation Inc (IAI) for use as troop support. The Multi-Arm Unmanned Ground Vehicle (MA-UGV) is the name of this device from the Rockville, Maryland, R&D company that focuses on AI applications. The three-armed robot can protect troops by lending its handling skills to carry out backback inspections for explosive devices, for example, and, to use the military term, "disarm" Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). IAI has produced a set of impressive videos that show how the robot, whether cutting wires or tying knots, or extending its mechanical joints for better reach and precision, has capabilities to perform tasks requiring complex manipulation under military-type scenarios. Fingertip positioning and grasp are especially impressive as shown inn the videos; the robot is capable of using a 29 degree of freedom system and the robot is shown deftly handling IEDs.

Japan's entertaining robot that sings and looks like a beautiful young female is finally learning how to walk just like a beautiful girl well, almost. Robotics developers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have released a video of their HRP-4C Miim robot to show how it can walk better than before. HRP-4C has 30 motors in its body that allow it to walk and move its arms; and eight motors on its face to create human expressions. The robot is based on User Centered Robot Open Architecture utilizing fundamental robotic technologies including real-time Linux, RT middleware, robot simulator openHRP3, and speech recognition. AIST researchers, like other scientific groups dedicated to robotics, have been working hard to create the perfect walking robot and to design walking technologies that can make their robots most closely resemble the way humans walk.

Robots can paint, but when it comes to writing, they shouldn't quit their day jobs. That's the combined conclusion from results of two contests announced this week. On the upside, artificial intelligence created some pretty impressive works for RobotArt.org's The contest challenged artists and engineers to create a robot that painted like a real artist. Essentially, the aim was to get "as many teams as possible to set up a robot that can do any sort of painting," the contest site explains.

Business documents written in foreign languages are no longer the problem they once were thanks to technologies like Google Translate, but what about contracts written in legalese? That's where LawGeex hopes to help with an AI-based online tool. LawGeex offers what it calls the world's first contract review platform based on artificial intelligence. The goal, it says, is to help businesses and individuals "get a fair deal" before signing an agreement. Toward that end, it combines machine-learning algorithms with crowdsourced data, text analytics, and the knowledge of expert lawyers to make in-depth contract reviews accessible to everyone.

Intel is in transition right now: An executive shakeup this month laid the path for new boss Venkata Renduchintala to put his imprint on the company's PC, Internet of Things and software operations. So no wonder the vibe at this week's Intel Developer Forum in Shenzhen was mellow. Intel kept the show a low-key affair, choosing not to bring it to the attention of a worldwide audience, unlike previous years. But IDF Shenzhen remains an important event on Intel's calendar. China is a huge market, and it's also a place where the chip maker encourages small hardware shops in the alleys of Shenzhen to experiment with PC, mobile and now, IoT ideas.

Playing against a top Go player, Google DeepMind's AlphaGo artificial-intelligence program has puzzled commentators with moves that are often described as "beautiful," but do not fit into the usual human style of play. Artificial-intelligence experts think these moves reflect a key AI strength of AlphaGo, its ability to learn from its experience. Such moves cannot be produced by just incorporating human knowledge, said Doina Precup, associate professor in the School of Computer Science at McGill University in Quebec, in an email interview. "AlphaGo represents not only a machine that thinks, but one that can learn and strategize," agreed Howard Yu, professor of strategic management and innovation at IMD business school. AlphaGo won three games consecutively against Lee Se-dol last week in Seoul, securing the tournament and US$1 million in prize money that Google plans to give to charities. The program, however, lost the fourth game on Sunday when it made a mistake.