Chillingly life-like robots are causing a storm in Japan – where their creators are about to launch them as actresses, full-size mechanical copies for pop idol fans, and clones of the dearly departed. There is even talk that the naturalistic, even engaging, she-droids may be taken up as men as partners in the not-too-distant future. Android Asuna was a star attraction at Tokyo Designers' Week showcase earlier this month and she is one of a series of geminoids, as their inventor dubs them, that are ripe for commercialisation say their creator robotics professor Hiroshi Ishiguro. Eerie: Android engineers have recently been able to overcome the'Uncanny Valley syndrome', where androids elicit a response of revulsion because they look almost, but not quite, human Gobsmacked men attending the show told MailOnline that she was well made, very convincing and had a nice voice. One man joked that Asuna would make'a good date; a cheap date!' From others, covering their mouths in astonishment at Asuna's realistic skin and facial expressions, the frequent response from the public was'sukoi' which translates as'amazing' in English.

I'm a big believer that voice-recognition technology will play an increasingly prominent role in how we interact with technology -- so much that I've made a bet on Nuance Communications (NAS: NUAN) accordingly as the clear technological leader in the field. So when the CEO of a small voice-recognition software company, Datria, reached out to me for a conversation, I jumped at the chance. Datria is a small private player with about 50 employees, and it resells Nuance's speech engine while also counting software giant SAP (NYS: SAP) as an investor. Jim Greenwell has been CEO for 12 years, and he provided valuable insight into the industry at large, as well as what trends users and investors should be on the lookout for. Who will rally the troops?

Uber plans to map the world, freeing itself from reliance on Google Maps and paving the way for its own fleet of driverless cars. Uber's mapping vehicles hit American roads last year, were introduced in Mexico earlier this summer, and will eventually extend to the other 76 countries where the ride-hailing service operates, gathering precise data on pickup and drop-off locations and traffic patterns. Following an influx of $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, Uber says it will invest $500 million in developing its in-house maps, the Financial Times reported. "With autonomous vehicles, maps are going to be fundamental," Brian McClendon, a vice president at Uber, told The Atlantic. "And the maps that are needed for autonomous vehicles are beyond anything that's being created today by any third party." An expert in geospatial data visualization, Mr. McClendon led Google Maps for more than a decade before jumping to Uber to lead its mapping projects last June.

China has built the world's fastest supercomputer, capable of making 93 quadrillion calculations a second. And for the first time, it's entirely powered by Chinese-made processors, following a US ban on exporting chips for devices suspected to be used for nuclear research. The Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer, which is located at the state-funded Chinese Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, a city near Shanghai in eastern China, is more than twice as powerful as previous record-holder Tianhe-2, according to TOP500, a research organization that ranks the powerful computers twice a year. The milestone comes a year after the United States barred exports of computer chips to China for use in its supercomputers, citing concerns that the machines had been used in "nuclear explosive activities." In turn, by ramping up development of its own chips, China has come to surpass the US' own achievements in supercomputing: the top-placing American creation, the Department of Energy's Titan, secured third place ranking on TOP500's list, below China's two-record breaking supercomputers. "It's not based on an existing architecture.

"You no longer need an Alexa-enabled device to test your skills. Developers worldwide can use Echosim.io to experience Alexa." Alexa originated as the voice behind the increasingly popular Amazon Echo and has developed since into a powerful platform for voice-activated commands. In Echo form, Alexa can access music streaming services, control lighting and heat, order pizza, or answer simple, Googlable questions. The potential is also there for Alexa to do a lot more. With the help of some coding knowledge, customers can create their own custom commands Alexa can respond to – a big strength of the platform that means updates and improvements will be regularly created and added. Developer attraction could also be an edge for Amazon's Echo as rival tech companies like Google come out with their own versions.

Can Donald Trump make artificial intelligence "great again?" A new Twitterbot is analyzing the way Mr. Trump speaks and using the data to generate tweets. The end result is intended to be an autonomous program capable of crafting tweets that sound like Mr. Trump and it has already garnered thousands of fans. "Much of my actual robotics research deals with these types of modeling techniques," Mr. Hayes said in a MIT article about the project. "I thought this would be a good way to learn more about some of the concepts, and have a little bit of fun in the process."

On Sunday, Mark Zuckerberg set his goal for 2016 via a Facebook post: build an artificial intelligence to run his home and assist his work, "like Jarvis in Iron Man." The lofty ambition fits a growing trend of "smart" home technology, which links smartphones, tablets, and other computers with household appliances and other home items. High-powered commercial drones, self-driving cars, and virtual reality dominated the presentations at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, with Microsoft announcing its intention to become the "ultimate platform for all intelligent cars" and Intel showing how its new drone can dodge falling trees. But Samsung aimed closer to home. During its CES press conference, the South Korean company focused on new its new "SmartThings" appliances, which range from televisions to washing machines.

Nobody calls C3PO creepy, eerie, or spooky. But humanoid doppleganger social robots like Nadine are being found unsettling by many, both because of their appearance and also due to ethical issues connected to the ways they may be used. Nadine is a social robot made in the likeness of creator Professor Nadia Thalmann from Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore). Nadine is programmed with intelligent "assistant" software similar to Siri (the Apple computer program that works as an intelligent personal assistant) and Siri's Microsoft counterpart Cortana. Nadine, however, also expresses a version of moods and emotions with the ability to remember the people she has met before as well as conversations.

Debates on the future of artificial intelligence often boil down to questions about whether the technology could help humans -- detecting patterns that could help solve crimes or driving autonomous car, for example -- or become the stuff of dystopian nightmares that have long fueled science fiction. With a $1 billion investment in a non-profit called Open AI, Tesla head Elon Musk and several other prominent tech executives are aiming for the former, while taking a swipe at the latter. The new company will make its patents and research open to the public in a bid to increase transparency about AI's potential rather than focusing on its commercial implications, say its backers -- who include LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, the start-up incubator Y-Combinator, and Amazon Web Services. "Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact," says the group in a statement. "We believe AI should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as possible... It's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society, and it's equally hard to imagine how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly."

Cars could soon feature the ultimate backseat driver, an artificial intelligence technology that aims to make roadways safer by telling you when your mind is wandering. In doing so, the Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi is taking autonomous vehicles in an entirely new direction, one that aims to improve the driver, Business Wire reports. "Not only does this smart automation offer more safety and the possibility of an enhanced experience for the de-stressed driver, but it can also reduce road congestion and benefit the environment," Matthew Beecham, an analyst for the automotive research agency QUBE, said of car automation generally in a news release. Mitsubishi calls the technology "deep learning," and it monitors the driver's behavior over time. The technology watches for patterns of normal, alert driving by gathering real-time data about the driver's steering, facial position, and even heart rate.