From the David Lynch-esque pastiche of Virginia to Nintendo's first Mario iOS game Super Mario Run, these are some of the biggest and most interesting games for consoles, computers and mobile devices due this fall--in order of release. The fourth entry in word-wizarding studio inkle's magnificent fantasy is also its last, though you needn't have played the prior three to ease in comfortably here. Boasting "tens of thousands of choices" and a tale that "rewrites itself around your actions," now's as good a time as any to introduce yourself to this superlative narrative romp from the developer of 80 Days (TIME's game of the year 2014). If you love David Lynch, you have to play newcomer Variable State's Virginia--it's really that simple (read TIME's review here). It's a "walking simulator," sure, but unlike any yet drafted, framing its mysteries in strictly visual terms, without audio logs or text dumps or even the grounding cadences of spoken dialogue.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Google Assistant, the company's voice-controlled AI tool, got its first public release to the English-speaking world last week inside the new messaging app Allo. Today Google is announcing the second language it'll work with: Hindi, the fourth most-spoken first language in the world and one of India's official languages. Google's other new communications effort, the video-calling app Duo, has seen "amazing uptake" in India, according to VP for the next billion users Caesar Sengupta, who tells The Verge that it's well-optimized for the country's 2G and 3G networks. Google is bullish on the prospects of Allo in India, then, with countless users who'd be more comfortable speaking to Assistant in Hindi than English. The addition of Hindi support, or any extra languages at all, is significant because of Assistant's heavy focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

When I arrived at Qihan's IFA booth, a rainbow-colored trio of Sanbots were performing choreographed moves to some unrecognizable pop song. Because, well, when you want to get people to stop at your both in the middle of a giant show full of gadgety distractions, you pull out all the stops. The plucky little robot has flipper arms, a pair of wheels for feet and a body chock full of various sensors to help it perform a factotum of different jobs, from security guard to nursing home companion to educational assistant. According to the company, this iteration of Sanbot has already been deployed at various spots in China from retail establishments to airports. Sanbot's got a Kinect-style 3D camera and HD camera about its LED eyes, a touchscreen tablet in its chest and infrared sensors at its feet.

X, formerly known as the Google X lab before spinning off into a new unit under parent Alphabet after a company restructuring, has tapped artificial intelligence to drive one of its most popular projects. Project Loon, which looks to launch balloons into the stratosphere to provide internet access to users on Earth, made a major breakthrough recently. One of its balloons was able to stay up in Peruvian airspace for 98 days, an impressive feat considering the difficulty to keep a balloon at a certain spot for a long period of time. The breakthrough was announced by the Project Loon team through its official Google page, where it stated that it was hard at work in the development of the navigation technology that its balloons will use. The latest updates were put to the test this summer on one of Project Loon's flights, launching the balloon from a site in Puerto Rico and then having it travel to Peru.

Mad Street Den, an India-U.S. startup focused on artificial intelligence that was started by ex-Silicon Valley founders, has pulled in an undisclosed Series A round of funding from Sequoia Capital India. Existing investors Exfinity Ventures and growX Ventures also took part. The two-and-a-half-year-old company is registered in the U.S. but principally located in Chennai, India, with offices in London and San Francisco. Mad Street Den was founded by husband and wife duo Anand Chandrasekaran and Ashwani Asokan who spent more than 25 years combined working in the U.S. -- he is a neuroscientist who graduated Stanford, while she spent most of her career Stateside with Intel Labs. We wrote about Mad Street Den when it picked up a 1.5 million seed round in January 2015.

Ben Robinson, chief strategy & marketing officer at banking software firm Temenos, explains how the future of finance will be shaped by artificial technology. Google's DeepMind triumph this year over one of the world's highest ranked champions at Go is a sign: computers with artificial intelligence (AI) are learning how to outperform us. If computers can learn to beat us at a game, why not at things that we can't afford to get wrong – medical diagnostics, risk analysis, legal and investment advice? And what effect over time – say 20 years – will this have on the way a host of services, such as banking, are delivered? "Service will be all about data and algorithms," David Brear, co-founder and CEO at 11:FS recently suggested.

Amid Japan's rapidly aging population, a burgeoning industry is targeting families expecting a death in the near future. Services on offer range from seminars on funerals and inheritance arrangements to a board game that prepares players for the financial implications of age-related decline. With more and more elderly Japanese living alone, consultations are also offered on how to obtain guardianship needed for time in hospital, as well as how to bequeath assets to individuals and organizations other than legal heirs. Pip Robot Technology Co.'s "Kokorozumori" ("Making Preparations in One's Head") is a dice board game that gets families to think about the costs and implications of caring for aging, ailing relatives. The Osaka-based manufacturer of robot dolls intended as companions for elderly people created the game in 2015, in collaboration with a research team at the University of Tsukuba. Players form pairs -- one elderly and the other a younger family member -- and earn an income in the form of pension and salary as they progress on the board.

It's a question we ask too often of children – who legitimately should have no idea – and not nearly enough of adults. From jockeys to deer farmers, the Australian Census has all the details on how Australians make a living. Australians are working longer than ever before, but the idea of a job for life is dead. The typical worker will now have several jobs in their lifetime and the nature of those jobs is constantly evolving. On the surface, our economy appears to be in a process of slowly sanitising itself.

It is projected that urban India will contribute about 75% of the national GDP in the next 15 years. With the rapid rate of urbanization and depleting resources, it is essential for India to rethink its strategy to see how it can best optimize the capabilities of its physical infrastructure. By leveraging global best practices in smart city development and ICT (Information and Communication Technology), India is in a unique position to leapfrog a few stages of growth to become a global superpower. In 2015, the Indian government announced an ambitious plan to develop 100 smart cities, with a commitment of spending 7.27 billion over the next five years. The infrastructure overhaul would include creating intelligent transport systems, smart grids, smart waste management, and smart water grids/solutions.