You've seen it in movies, cartoons and video games, but gladiator-style robot combat has yet to become a reality – until now. Megabots, a California robotics firm, tested a collection of machine-slaying bots to narrow down the deadliest ones for their Mk.III robot, which will take on Japan's Kuratas robot in an upcoming giant robot duel. The American team's weapons include a body crushing grapple and a spinning wheel of death nicknamed'The Dentist' that can tear through a 13 foot robot in seconds. Megabots, a California robotics firm, tested a collection of machine-slaying bots to narrow down the deadliest ones for their Mk.III robot that will take on Japan's Kuratas robot (pictured is a mock Kuratas) in an upcoming giant robot duel Megabot was originally conceived as a Kickstarter project to create a robot fighting league after it challenged Tokyo-based Suidobashi Heavy Industries, maker of the 13-foot Kuratas, in 2015 to the first giant robot battle of its kind - the date and location has yet to be determined. Win or lose, it's all part of Megabots' plan by to make a real-life robot fight club into big-time entertainment – something the team see as a mix between Ultimate Fighting Championship and Formula One auto racing.

As we're finally beginning to see video games take diverse representation seriously, it's almost poetic that Americans just elected a race-baiting misogynist as their next leader. It's as if the resentment built up over calls for more diversity in media (which also reared its ugly head with the Gamergate crowd) reached a point where a significant portion of the country was ready to be charmed by a demagogue who promised to stop those pesky Social Justice Warriors. Pop culture, be it games, film or novels, can't help but reflect the society in which it was created. And that couldn't be more true for Watch Dogs 2, a sprawling open world game that's notable for placing you in the sneakers of Marcus Holloway, a black activist hacker. Instead of centering on a generic angsty white dude, like the first Watch Dogs, the new game fully commits to exploring the role of race and identity in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley today -- ostensibly progressive environments that still have trouble finding a place for people of color.

The new, hippest technology product comes in innovative packaging, is very expensive and comes with an advertising campaign that boasts of how its obsessive engineering makes it the best in the world. Casper is the company at the forefront of a technology (and marketing) revolution that's seeing perhaps one of the most domestic and boring of products – bedding – become this year's must-have tech product. And that's entirely on purpose: the company is being advertised on tech podcasts, and promotes its mattresses with the kind of fun marketing that would usually be reserved for a phone or a computer. It hasn't come easily, and it hasn't been as much of a trick as it might seem. Instead, the company says that it really is a tech company – and that it has the product to prove it.

The rocket punching super robot Mazinger Z, constructed via an element called "japanium". After a five month public review, the chemical element Ununtrium with the atomic number of 113 will be re-named "nihonium" due to the Japanese team that managed to create it in the laboratory. The element itself is highly radioactive and has a half-life of only 20 seconds. As a result, this element doesn't occur naturally and has to be synthesized in a laboratory. A team of scientists at the Riken institute led by Professor Kosuke Morita of Kyushu University managed to do this by colliding zinc ions (30 protons) with bismuth (83 protons), the resultant element comprises of 113 protons and after creating it within the laboratory on at least three occasions, the team secured naming rights last year.

Dogs have a remarkable ability to recall events from the past, in a similar way to humans. That's according to a new study which found evidence canines have a similar'episodic memory' to their human counterparts. Dogs can recall a person's actions even when they do not expect to have their memory tested, says the research. Previously, evidence that animals use episodic memory has been hard to come by, as it's impossible to ask an animal, in this case a dog, what they remember (stock image) Dogs trained using the trick can watch a person perform an action and carry out the action themselves. For example, if the their owner jumps in the air and then gives the command'do it', the dog would jump in the air. However, the researchers also needed to show that the dogs remembered what they just saw a person do, even when they weren't expecting to be asked or rewarded.

Last week was an exciting one with some rumors about Apple's AAPL iPhone manufacturing in the U.S., Cisco's CSCO earnings report, Intel's INTC first AI Day plus lots more. In June this year, Apple requested its iPhone assemblers Pegatron and Foxconn to evaluate the feasibility of making the devices in the U.S. While Pegatron refused outright on cost considerations, Foxconn has decided to do the job. The study is likely to show that the cost increase, skill mismatch and supply chain problems (the supply chain is largely in Asia) would make this cost prohibitive. This would raise iPhone prices for consumers/squeeze Apple's margins.

The pace of investment in and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in business is accelerating and the level of interest and activity is rising across all sectors. This new book is a collaboration between Fast Future Publishing, a specialist publisher focusing on futures-oriented books, and AI Business, the leading media and events organisation on the practical application of AI in the business world. The intention is to provide a diverse set of perspectives on where the technology is going, how it is being deployed in business today, and how the capabilities, applications, and impact of AI could evolve over the next 3-10 years. We are looking for case study experience, insights, and visionary thinking from end users, technology vendors, professional service firms, researchers, and those with an interest in the field. We are inviting 250 word proposals for chapters that will be a maximum of 1,000 words in length.

The developments in Google's Cloud Computing segment, especially the Cloud Machine Learning service, have been so rapid that Google calls it one of its fastest growing product areas. Google has been ramping up their Cloud Platform quite aggressively in recent months. Just a few weeks ago, the Google Cloud Platform opened its newest zone in Tokyo, increasing the total number of regions they are present in to six - three in the US and one each in Belgium and Taiwan and Tokyo. Not long ago, the company announced its acquisition of Orbitera, a cloud commerce company. The developments in Google's Cloud Computing segment, especially the Cloud Machine Learning service, have been so rapid that Google calls it one of its fastest growing product areas.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is typically diagnosed in early childhood, but genetic detection of this brain disorder could mean more timely interventions that improve life for the patient and their carers. A new study suggests that machine learning algorithms might be used to analyze genetic data that points to an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis before symptoms become obvious. Fuad Alkoot of PAAET in Kuwait, and Abdullah Alqallaf of Kuwait University, Kuwait, explain that unlike other conditions, such as cancer, little heed has been taken to the possibility of early genetic detection of autism. This is despite the fact that an early diagnosis could be very useful to parents and carers. The team has now developed a four-stage computerized neural network system for testing simplified genetic data.

Facebook has developed a special tool to keep countries from seeing stories criticial of their government. The site has been secretly working on a feature that allows it to geographically censor specific posts from people in the country. It appears to have been done as a way of getting back into China, an important market for the company but one with an intense censorship regime. The apparent tool was revealed at a time when Facebook was facing increased scrutiny of how it picks what appears in news feed. It has received special criticism for the way that it allows fake news to flourish on the service, and many have claimed that it helped Donald Trump win the Presidential election.