CRISPR gene editing technology became nearly a household name with its potential to affect humanity. And a baby was born with three parents. While some decry the developed world is falling apart due to changing political environments, science and technology innovation is likely to continue thriving. In fact, innovation is occurring so fast, I believe 2017 will be the year governments begin to consider forming new science, technology, and futurist agencies and organizations to better contend with the rapid change. The old ones are mired in bureaucracy, conservative religious ideology, and the past--unable to contend with issues like nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) continued its stellar performance in 2016, with its top line growing at more than 25% in the first three quarters of the fiscal year and beating market expectations. Additionally, the company's added focus on improving its bottom line started to pay dividends, with its earnings per share for the first nine months growing appreciably from -$0.03 in 2015 to $0.34 in 2016. Moreover, during the year, Salesforce made a number of acquisitions and made a push in the e-commerce and artificial intelligence domains, opening up avenues for further growth. Apart from this, the company also affirmed its goal of $10 billion in revenues, which it expects to achieve by the end of next year. Despite a good performance in the first three quarters of the year, Salesforce's stock is currently trading 12% lower than its price in January, owing to a tougher market environment and relatively soft performance in the second quarter.

Because all of the low-hanging scientific and technological fruit has supposedly been plucked. You can invent broad technologies like electrification, the light bulb, plumbing and sanitation, the telephone, refrigeration, the internal combustion engine, and the digital computer only once. Therefore most new technologies will consist of slight improvements on the old ones and that will not propel future economic growth. But have all broad technologies really been invented already? Below are three core technologies whose elaborations during the next decade will conjure into existence a world with far less transactional friction, amazing cures, and much smarter machines.

This is the first of a multi-part series explaining the fundamentals of deep learning by long-time tech journalist Michael Copeland. Artificial intelligence is the future. Artificial intelligence is science fiction. Artificial intelligence is already part of our everyday lives. All those statements are true, it just depends on what flavor of AI you are referring to.

By using this "Contrivance," "the most ignorant Person at a reasonable Charge, and with a little bodily Labour, may write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks, and Theology, with the least Assistance from Genius or study." Bayesian inference will become a leading approach in machine learning. The boat was equipped with, as Tesla described, "a borrowed mind." The word "robot" comes from the word "robota" (work). It features a robot double of a peasant girl, Maria, which unleashes chaos in Berlin of 2026--it was the first robot depicted on film, inspiring the Art Deco look of C-3PO in Star Wars.

While merrily chirping, dancing and posing for selfies, a robot named Pepper looks like another expensive toy at a San Francisco mall. But don't dismiss it as mere child's play. Pepper embodies the ambitions of SoftBank Robotics, an Asian joint venture formed by a trio of major technology companies that's aiming to put its personable robots in businesses and homes across the U.S. over the next few years. If the technology advances as Softbank Robotics hopes, Pepper could become a playmate, companion and concierge. It could eventually respond to voice commands to retrieve vital information, make reservations and control home appliances that are connected to the internet.

A bereaved family is suing Apple after the death of their young daughter, who died in a car crash allegedly caused by a driver who was using FaceTime behind the wheel. The family said the tech giant should have implemented software it patented in 2008 which would have prevented the app being used by a driver. Five-year-old Moriah Modisette was travelling in the back of her parent's car near Dallas in 2014 when it was hit at 65 mph by Garrett Willhelm, 22, who was using the Apple app while driving, police said. She later died of her injuries and her parents, James and Bethany Modisette, and sister, Isabella, eight, were also hurt. Officers at the scene found the FaceTime app still running after the crash.

People are gearing up to say good riddance to 2016, and as the Earth completes another revolution around the sun, we're all eager to try our hand at predicting the next big thing. Will virtual reality, on-demand services, and bots shine again in 2017? Or will the spotlight turn to messaging apps, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence? Here are 15 startups that I believe are worth watching over the next 12 months. This is the latest in a series of annual posts -- you can look back at 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 -- and this one highlights companies that I predict will experience something interesting, possibly even major (good or bad), over the course of the next year. So here they are, in no particular order.

I never think of the future. This quote, credited to Albert Einstein, aptly sums up the daunting speed at which the technology treadmill moves, disrupting existing business models in its wake. It's, however, very difficult to accurately predict which trends will mature and which will die along the way. Nevertheless, if the year gone by is any indication, 'digital' will continue to be the overarching theme of 2017 and its broad components--the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data analytics, smart cities and villages, artificial intelligence (AI), mixed reality, digital payments, blockchain, Robotics, connected cars, 3D printing, drones and cybersecurity--will mature over the next 12 months and the coming few years. Will adoption of these trends by the government, citizens and companies, however, ensure India is on the path of becoming truly digital?

Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Co. is planning to slash nearly 30 percent of its payment assessment department's human staff after it introduces an artificial intelligence (AI) system in January 2017 to improve operating efficiency. While concrete examples of AI systems making human workers redundant are currently rare, observers have pointed out that such cases are likely to increase. The insurance firm will introduce an AI system based on IBM Japan Ltd.'s Watson, which according to IBM is a "cognitive technology that can think like a human," and "can analyze and interpret all of your data, including unstructured text, images, audio and video." The Watson-based system will be tasked with reading medical certificates written by doctors and other documents to collect information necessary for making payouts, such as medical histories, length of hospital stays, and surgical procedure names. In addition to determining payment amounts, the system will also be able to check customers' cases against their insurance contracts to find any special coverage clauses -- a measure expected to prevent payment oversights.