Expressive Sophia by Hanson Robotics is one of the most impressive bots of 2016. And thanks to the newly released "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", public sentiment towards droids is off the charts. It's unlikely the CNET team will stumble across anything as endearing new Star Wars droid K-2SO as it scours the halls in Las Vegas. Robots have primarily been used as marketing gimmicks or demonstration props at previous shows. That, says IHS analyst Dinesh Kithany, is set to change.

Donald Trump has expressed continued skepticism over whether Russia was responsible for computer hacks of Democratic Party officials. In remarks to reporters upon entering a New Year's Eve celebration at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump warned against being quick to pin the blame on Russia for the hacking of US emails. "I just want them to be sure, because it's a pretty serious charge," he said. "And if you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they were wrong." The Washington Post also reported on Friday that Moscow could be behind intrusion into a laptop owned by a Vermont electricity utility.

Glancing around school classrooms in 2016, it's easy to miss just how far technology has transformed learning over the last decade. The desks, whiteboards and rows of chairs are the same, but so much else has changed that can't be seen. A third of Britain's schools are asking students to bring their own tablets and laptops into the classroom now, coding has been on the national curriculum for three years, and more and more education is happening outside school through apps and digital services. But these changes are just the start. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the next giant leap in learning and, according to those working in the field of education and technology, we haven't seen anything yet.

Good news, fellow humans: The United Nations has decided to take on killer robots. At the international Convention on Conventional Weapons in Geneva, 123 participating nations voted to initiate official discussions on the danger of lethal autonomous weapons systems. That's the emerging designation for so-called "killer robots" -- weapons controlled by artificial intelligence that can target and strike without human intervention. The agreement is the latest development in a growing movement calling for an preemptive ban on weaponized A.I. and deadly autonomous weapons. Last year, a coalition of more than 1,000 scientists and industry leaders, including Elon Musk and representatives of Google and Microsoft, signed an official letter to the United Nations demanding action.

If you'll remember, nuTonomy is operating a self-driving taxi service in Singapore. The test vehicle is a Renault Zoe -- one of the models it uses for autonomous taxis -- but that's where the similarities end. The Herald says there aren't any plans to offer a similar service in the city just yet. As the publication notes, Massachusetts has become somewhat of a hotbed for autonomous-vehicle research. Currently, Toyota, Audi and local startup Optimus Ride are in various stages of testing their wares.

Humankind has cast an eye toward another "giant leap" forward nearly half a century after the United States' Apollo 11 spacecraft delivered humans to the moon for the first time. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is planning to put a manned spacecraft into orbit around Mars in the 2030s, before sending humans to explore the red planet. Similar in size to Earth, and relatively close, Mars is widely considered as the most promising and realistic candidate planet for manned space exploration. The planet, however, is more than 50 million km away from Earth even when their orbits are at their closest. With a round-trip journey taking multiple years, a realistic approach to the journey calls for fuel and other required materials to be made available along the way.

We'll come right out and say it: 2016 wasn't the greatest year by any standards. In particular, divisive politics and celebrity death seemed to cast a long shadow over the last 12 months. There was the occasional ray of light poking through the clouds though. Especially in technology, which is what brings us all together here at Engadget. Over the last year, we've tried to bring you as many of those uplifting stories (even if they are bittersweet) as possible, to provide a little respite from 2016's emotional hailstorm.

How important is artificial intelligence (AI) to Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU)? Gone is the era of PC, and soon will we say goodbye to the era of mobile internet ... We believe that coming is the era of artificial intelligence. Andrew Ng, Baidu's chief scientist, has some experience in this area. During his previous tenure at Google parent Alphabet, he led the Google Brain AI project. He is also an adjunct professor at Stanford University, where he taught AI.

Facebook has hidden a special new year easter egg in its website. The site is letting people celebrate New Year's Eve by watching fairly dismal fireworks light up their news feed. On New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, any time anyone writes the words "Happy New Year", they'll turn blue. Whenever anyone clicks on those words, a little firework animation will play. 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.

Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing giant behind Apple's iPhone and numerous other major electronics devices, aims to automate away a vast majority of its human employees, according to a report from DigiTimes. Dai Jia-peng, the general manager of Foxconn's automation committee, says the company has a three-phase plan in place to automate its Chinese factories using software and in-house robotics units, known as Foxbots. The first phase of Foxconn's automation plans involve replacing the work that is either dangerous or involves repetitious labor humans are unwilling to do. The second phase involves improving efficiency by streamlining production lines to reduce the number of excess robots in use. The third and final phase involves automating entire factories, "with only a minimal number of workers assigned for production, logistics, testing, and inspection processes," according to Jia-peng.