Over the last one year, Intuitive Surgical has generated returns in excess of 50%. An economic moat, a lack of competition and financial out-performance are some of the reasons for this excellent run. In this analysis, we look at the factors that can impact Intuitive's growth going ahead: Competition from other players: Intuitive Surgical faces little competition in the robotic surgery market, as there are significant barriers to entry and the company holds more than 1,000 patents worldwide. So far Intuitive has enjoyed a free run. TransEnterix was expected to be the challenger with its SurgiBot Systems.

Researchers in Japan suggest there's a surprising neurological reason why people avert their gaze occasionally during conversation. Reporting in the journal Cognition, they write that eye contact actually "disrupts resources available to cognitive control processes during verb generation." In other words, when you need to come up with certain words under certain circumstances, maintaining eye contact depletes the very brain resources you need to find the word. To test this, the researchers asked 26 participants to make eye contact with a computer-generated face while playing a word association game, reports Business Insider. Looking at the face didn't seem to interfere with their ability to come up with verbs easily associated to nouns--like the word "scissors" prompting the person to think of "cut."

We won't have to wait much longer for our Robotech future. South Korean robotics manufacturer Hankook Mirae Technology debuted its first prototype piloted mech over the weekend. Say hello to the Method-2. It stands 13-feet tall, weighs 1.3 tons and wields a pair of 286-pound, motion-tracking metal arms. "Our robot is the world's first manned bipedal robot and is built to work in extreme hazardous areas where humans cannot go (unprotected)," company chairman, Yang Jin-Ho, said in a prepared statement.

Samsung's Galaxy S8 is expected to include the debut of a new voice-based digital assistant. Following on from the South Korean company's acquisition of Viv Labs, the technology from this artificial intelligence platform will be baked into Samsung's software on the upcoming flagship. Previous Galaxy handsets have supported voice interaction using its S Voice application, but the inclusion of a new voice-powered digital assistant (that many are calling'Bixby') should give Samsung an AI presence in all of the Galaxy S8's own applications (reports SamMobile). It also gives Samsung a stronger foothold into the world of digital AI alongside the likes of Microsoft's Cortana, Apple's Siri, and Google's imaginatively named Google Assistant. And it is the latter which could raise some eyebrows in Mountain View.

A giant robot designed by scientists based in South Korea has taken its first steps. At 13ft (4m) tall, Method-2, shook the ground as it walked. A human pilot in the robot's torso makes limb movements which are then mimicked by the robot.

What humans will look like in 100 years: Expert reveals the genetically modified bodies we'll need to survive Harvard researchers says to survive the next extinction we must leave the Earth But to live on other planets we will need to genetically modify our organs Experts have previously speculated how humanity will look in 1,000 years' time Video describes scenario in which bodies are part-human part-machine Experts have previously speculated how humanity will look in 1,000 years' time The Harvard researcher explains how genetic modification could be used to upgrade the human genome over the next century. Meat-loving dinosaur that grew up to be a toothless... Cyber doomsday is coming: Experts warn the ENTIRE internet... Why Christmas is the worst day of the year for air pollution... Maker of Dior, Fendi and Hugo Boss eyewear set to release... Meat-loving dinosaur that grew up to be a toothless... Cyber doomsday is coming: Experts warn the ENTIRE internet... Why Christmas is the worst day of the year for air pollution... Maker of Dior, Fendi and Hugo Boss eyewear set to release... Genetically reprogrammed human cells could repair themselves from deadly radiation on Mars. And lungs and tissues could be genetically redesigned so that they gather more oxygen in the low-O2 atmospheres of other planets. Tissues could also be modified to better filter out deadly toxins in harsh atmospheres. Mr Enríquez also suggests human cells could be reprogrammed to resist infection from deadly viruses such as HIV.

Facebook is warning people about a fake explosion in Bangkok, falsely suggesting that the entire city is at risk. The site has activated its "Safety Check" feature across Thailand's capital. That means that anyone it thinks is in the area will see a message informing them that there has been "an explosion", and encouraging them to mark themselves safe from it. But no such explosion actually happened and the fake alert seems to be the result of changes that the company has made to its Safety Check feature. It appears to have been activated by a minor incident, reported only in the local news, where a man took firecrackers to a government building in an apparent protest.

Driving your car until it breaks down on the road is never anyone's favorite way to learn the need for routine maintenance. But preventive or scheduled maintenance checks often miss many of the problems that can come up. An Israeli startup has come up with a better idea: Use artificial intelligence to listen for early warning signs that a car might be nearing a breakdown. The service of 3DSignals, a startup based in Kefar Sava, Israel, relies on the artificial intelligence technique known as deep learning to understand the noise patterns of troubled machines and predict problems in advance. The startup has even chatted with companies about using their service to automatically detect problems in future taxi fleets of driverless cars.

Humans are probably not the greatest intelligences in the universe. Earth is a relatively young planet and the oldest civilizations could be billions of years older than us. But even on Earth, Homo sapiens may not be the most intelligent species for that much longer. The world Go, chess, and Jeopardy champions are now all AIs. AI is projected to outmode many human professions within the next few decades. And given the rapid pace of its development, AI may soon advance to artificial general intelligence--intelligence that, like human intelligence, can combine insights from different topic areas and display flexibility and common sense. From there it is a short leap to superintelligent AI, which is smarter than humans in every respect, even those that now seem firmly in the human domain, such as scientific reasoning and social skills.

Welcome back from the long festive weekend. In the midst of all that egg-nog, present opening and family router troubleshooting, you might have missed Apple's first published AI research, the worst gadgets of the year, and the latest Chinese luxury smartphone that goes all-in on battery life. Sidestepping the rest of the bad news that 2016 managed to deliver, there were some stinkers when it came to this year's new gadgets. Smoking (then exploding) phones, plain racist app photo filters, excessively overpriced smartwatches and those dongles. It's all about object recognition. When Apple said it would publish its artificial intelligence research, we had a few questions: Would the company keep potential trade secrets close to the vest?