Web retailers have plenty of data on their customers. Some of these online technologies can even track shoppers from site to site to lure them back with what's known as retargeting ads -- promos targeted to what that shopper has looked at before, but didn't actually buy. Smart shelves with sensors promise the same kind of in-depth consumer behaviour analytics at retail stores. At a Kroger store in Cold Spring, Ohio, shelves currently show digitized price tags and information about the products. The next step is to tie that to individual shoppers.

The most futuristic car ever made has just been revealed – an electric vehicle with the acceleration of a Formula 1 car and the ability to learn about its driver. But some have already voiced fears that the car might not ever actually be made. And it appeared to run into problem during its first outing, unable to complete a demonstration that served as the centrepiece of the big reveal. The Faraday FF91 was revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. As a highly-designed, self-driving and fast electric vehicle it looks to take on Tesla – but is likely to cost significantly more than any of that company's cars.

After cars that drive themselves, phones you can talk to and shopping delivered by drone, it's hard to guess where technology is headed next. Step forward these shorts, which reveal more than a pair of legs – they also tell the wearer where to go. The Daisy Duke-style shorts send a vibration to different sides of the body, indicating when and where to turn. Step in the right direction: The Spinali Design shorts, left, and jeans, right, send a vibration to different sides of the body, indicating when and where to turn. They are connected to a smartphone by Bluetooth, and so when a route is set on the phone it sends the directions through to the shorts. The shorts also buzz to let the wearer know if they have an incoming text or call, taking away the need to keep checking the phone.

Start-up Faraday Future has unveiled a self-driving electric car that it says can accelerate from zero to 60mph (97km/h) in 2.39 seconds. Faraday says the FF91 accelerates faster than Tesla's Model S or any other electric car in production. It was shown off at the CES tech show in Las Vegas. But Faraday Future has faced financial difficulties and one analyst said it had to challenge "scepticism" following last year's CES presentation. The FF91 was introduced via a live demo, in which it drove itself around a car park and backed into an empty space.

One key concern raised in the video is the notion of uncontrolled development, "as impoverishment, slums and shantytowns rapidly expand alongside modern high-rises". Dharavi in Maharashtra India, Neza-Chalco-Itza in Mexico City and Kibera in Nairobi are prominent examples of such developments. However such massive developments do not happen overnight and Ilievski suggests that machine learning models can "capture the patterns of urban change driven by a diverse set of context factors" like economic growth, demographics changes, proximity, and neighborhood conditions. Ilievski demonstrates that machine learning can accurately predict how land use evolves over time across categories like undeveloped, main street, peripheral street, industry, house, education, park, etc.

The use of facial recognition software for commercial purposes is becoming more common, but, as Amazon scans faces in its physical shop and Facebook searches photos of users to add tags to, those concerned about their privacy are fighting back. Berlin-based artist and technologist Adam Harvey aims to overwhelm and confuse these systems by presenting them with thousands of false hits so they can't tell which faces are real. The Hyperface project involves printing patterns on to clothing or textiles, which then appear to have eyes, mouths and other features that a computer can interpret as a face. This is not the first time Harvey has tried to confuse facial recognition software. During a previous project, CV Dazzle, he attempted to create an aesthetic of makeup and hairstyling that would cause machines to be unable to detect a face.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to launch a test soon to determine whether artificial intelligence can help bureaucrats write draft answers for questions made to Cabinet ministers and others during deliberations in the Diet. The ministry is considering using AI to draw up challenges and debate points for policy issues -- using Diet proceedings in the past five years as a guide -- in the hopes of improving work efficiency. The ministry, which has promoted what it calls the "fourth industrial revolution" that utilizes AI and the internet of things, is looking to set an example that would spread the use of AI in other government agencies and ministries. Bureaucrats often spend long hours drafting answers to Diet questions, with the work often continuing until dawn on the day they are used. In the Kasumigaseki government district in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, close attention is being paid to whether the industry ministry's AI-related initiative will help reduce these long work hours.

With the dawn of the computer age the typewriter has disappeared into obscurity in most parts of the world, but in Myanmar many people still rely on typewriters to make a living. In a country where electricity is still unstable and computers remain prohibitively expensive for many, typewriters are seen less as a product of a bygone era and more as a necessity. However, as change creeps into the country their numbers are dwindling and the few who have stuck with them are struggling to survive.

Not a day goes by when we don't hear of something related to artificial intelligence in the news. But AI (sometimes confused with machine learning, which is simply a technique within AI) wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for one seminal event in 2016: AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol. In March last year, an AI program that trained itself to play the ancient game of Go beat the 18-time world champion. The reason it was such a feat for AI, was because Go is about feel, strategic judgment and winning multiple battles across the board – and a computer cannot simply memorise all possible combinations of board pieces, assess the situation, construct and execute a strategy to win, like chess. So the programmers of AlphaGo, from Google DeepMind, set up the basic heuristics of the game, allowed AlphaGo to analyse previous games and then split its brain so it could play itself millions of times.

YAVNE, ISRAEL – After 15 years of development, an Israeli tech firm is optimistic it will finally get its 1,500 kg (1.5 ton) passenger-carrying drone off the ground and into the market by 2020. The Cormorant, billed as a flying car, is capable of transporting 500 kg (around half a ton) and traveling at 185 km (115 miles) per hour. It completed its first automated solo flight over terrain in November. Its total price is estimated at $14 million. Developers Urban Aeronautics believe the dark green drone, which uses internal rotors rather than helicopter propellers, could evacuate people from hostile environments or allow military forces safe access.