Olivia is patient and tireless, with soft brown eyes and a gentle bedside manner. She wears the light blue scrubs and fob watch of an NHS nurse, which in fact she is. But Olivia is also a robot, a virtual avatar accessed on a smartphone app. Currently on trial with the groups responsible for Vanguard in NHS Dudley Clinical Commissioning Group in the West Midlands, the NHS service for non-emergency calls, Olivia will check your symptoms, give advice on treatment and help schedule an appointment, whether that's in English, Spanish or Dutch; she speaks all three, as well as Czech and Japanese. Is it the same as talking to a live nurse?

"If you think this election is insane, wait until 2020. Thus spake the irrepressible Dr. Peter Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation and co-founder and executive chairman of Singularity University amongst other organizations, in a blog published the day before the U.S. election. He pointed to exponential advances in five areas of technology that describe and enable something I consider to be far removed from true democracy. First, the exploding social media environment will contain so much personal information that political campaigns will continuously mine its every video, photo, and comment to the last byte in order to understand your wants and needs, thoughts and feelings, friends and foes in the most intimate detail. Supported by extensive artificial intelligence (AI) models, they will "know you" better that you know yourself. With the addition of almost endless data from the trillion-sensor-strong Internet of Things, campaigns will know where you are ...

In the 1990s, fashion's relationship with robots was the stuff of fantasy. On the runway of Alexander McQueen's imaginative Spring/Summer 1999 show, two robotic arms spray-painted a white dress worn by Shalom Harlow. Today, the industry's relationship with automation is much more practical. In the distribution centres of e-commerce giants like the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group and Amazon (which, in 2012, paid $775 million to acquire Kiva Systems, a manufacturer of robotic fulfilment systems used by Gap, Gilt Groupe and Saks 5th Avenue) software-controlled robots routinely navigate giant warehouses, picking and transporting inventory faster and more accurately than humans, enabling services like same-day delivery. "Automated storage and retrieval systems provide high storage density as well as inventory accuracy and management, yet require a smaller footprint," explains Steve Crease, director of operations at Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, which uses ASRS to deliver its "key service level" of same-day delivery.

A Japanese insurance company is replacing its staff with an artificial intelligence system. The move, which will see more than 30 people sacked to make way for the computer, is being seen as one of the clearest examples of the coming changes that robots and machines will bring to the workplace. Japan hopes that by introducing more robots into its workforce it can address the problem of its shrinking and rapidly ageing population. And the company itself – Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance – claims that the investment in the robot will start paying off after two years. 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. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

Huawei has made a name for itself by partnering with Google on the final Nexus phone and selling affordable, feature-packed handsets in China, but now the company is looking to stand on its own in the U.S. Not only is it finally launching its 6.9-inch Mate 9 phablet to the States, it's bringing along a new friend along for the trip: Alexa. Among the features of the Mate 9--aside from its giant 1080p display--are a 4,000 mAh battery, 5A fast charging through its SuperCharge technology, and a Leica-made dual-lens camera that combines a 12MP standard camera with a 20MP monochrome one to capture more depth and detail. Also on board is Huawei's Hybrid Zoom system that delivers 2x magnification, and a 4-in-1 hybrid auto-focus that combines "laser focus, phase detection focus, depth focus, and contrast focus." The Mate 9 is powered by Huawei's in-house Kirin 960 chipset, which features an ARM Cortex-A73/A53 Octa-core CPU and Mali G71 Octa-core GPU. The company boasts that the chip utilizes a "Machine Learning Algorithm that helps deliver a fast and smooth experience, even after 18 months of continuous use."

LG has unveiled an array of devices to make smart homes even smarter - including a radical ultrathin TV than can be hung on the wall with magnets. The ultrathin LG Signature OLED W television is just just 2.57mm thin in the 65-inch model, and mounts seamlessly to the wall to create the experience of'looking through a window into another world.' The company is set to market the device, which as yet has no price or release date, as a'wallpaper' TV. The ultrathin LG Signature OLED W television is just just 2.57mm thin in the 65-inch model, and mounts seamlessly to the wall to create the experience of'looking through a window into another world.' To avoid cables, it has a single cable that runs to a sound bar, which has all of the normal connectors.

True, set manufacturers are bombarding consumers with a whole series of buzzwords -- OLED, 4K, 8K, HDR, QLED, wide color gamut -- intended to spur excitement and generate sales. Flashy new sets with these supposedly "must have" features are getting the spotlight Wednesday at the annual CES gadget show in Las Vegas. But when it comes down to it, none of these amount to revolutionary improvements for your living room. Set manufacturers may not have run out of technological tricks yet, but for this year, at least, they're reduced to improving what's already out there. "That's a good thing," said Gartner analyst Brian Blau, looking for the bright side.

Twitter has confirmed that it is about to kill Vine. The company announced late last year that it was going to end the popular video sharing app, in a controversial move. Now the owner has confirmed that will happen on 17 January. At that point, Vine will become "Vine Camera", an app meant for taking videos. It will still be possible to record the app's looping videos from that app, but the community and people's accounts will be removed.

This is computer-generated wordplay and an example of how the boundaries of artificial intelligence are shifting. If a computer can crack jokes, what other human activities could they start to replicate? What jobs could it take? Artificial intelligence has become an increasingly big issue for education - not least because many tech companies and publishers are circling around the huge commercial opportunities. But could students really get their answers from a robot rather than a teacher?

A Japanese insurance company has decided to get rid of 34 jobs and instead get artificial intelligence to take over assessing medical insurance claims over the phone. Starting from January 2017, Tokyo-based Fukoku Life Insurance Mutual Company is handing over the roles of 34 human insurance agents to IBM Watson Explorer, which is a cognitive search and content analysis platform that uses machine learning and language processing to analyse data for trends and patterns. According to a press release, Fukoku Life is using IBM Watson Explorer to classify and categorise diseases, injuries and surgical procedures. When insurance policy holders call the company's hotline to make an insurance claim, the IBM Watson supercomputer is able to analyse the customer's voice and detect keywords. As part of making the claim, the policyholder has to submit a medical certificate showing what condition they have, and IBM Watson can detect the name of the injury or disease listed, as well as dates such as the hospital admission date and surgery date.