Pepper, the humanoid robot, is coming up with all sorts of ways to serve its human overlords, including in eldercare. The little rolling robot took to the stage at the Disrupt SF Hackathon today to show how it could help our aging parents, should they fall and not be able to get up. According to PepperHealth creators Ethan Fan and Angelo Hizon – both Battlefield NY 2015 veterans for fitness app VimoFit – PepperHealth will also detect a rapidly rising heart rate, check in on how you're feeling, follow up on your sleeping habits and remind you to take your meds -- the robot will even call up an Uber for those unable to use a smartphone. It works by detecting abnormal vitals through the Watch such as a rapid heart rate or a fall and then Pepper "wakes up" and comes over to check out what's going on. Should something serious happen, Pepper will alert a built-in emergency system and give medics the elder's location to get them immediate assistance.

That's the idea behind Local Motors' latest vehicle, which features a 3D-printed body, a windshield video screen and no steering wheel. Meanwhile, OX launched the world's first all-terrain flat-pack truck, which can be quickly shipped anywhere in the world. Cannae Corporation announced plans to test an "impossible" zero-exhaust microwave thruster that could revolutionize space travel. And Electra Meccanica launched SOLO, an affordable three-wheeled electric vehicle for one. In energy news, this week Sonos Motors announced plans to debut a solar-powered car within two years, and Soel Yachts unveiled a sun-powered motorboat that glides through the water without making a sound.

Follow Google's TTS system can mimic the human voice. Google has announced that DeepMind can mimic the human voice. While this feat might not seem that impressive given the fact that AI-driven voice synthesis has been around for some time, Google's engine can mimic any type of human voice without little to no interference or input from the user. We can all relate to Windows' XP TTS engine, where the user could instruct the system to read aloud chunks of texts either in a female or male voice. Google-owned artificial intelligence company DeepMind presented a deep neural network that generates amazingly human-like speech.

For being known as fighting to keep their projects secretive, Apple doesn't seem to mind that it's not so secret car project is known everywhere. Now, there's been a slight change in focus from being an automaker to developing its own self-driving technology. The iPhone-maker's automotive project, long an open secret in Silicon Valley, is shifting to focus on creating the technology for an autonomous vehicle that doesn't require a human driver. The new direction apparently doesn't foreclose the possibility that Apple might someday build its own car, but it opens the door to partnering with other car companies. The new emphasis was confirmed Friday by a person with knowledge of the project after the New York Times reported that Apple is "rethinking" its automotive strategy. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the project.

Any day now, Uber will introduce a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, making this former steel town the world's first city to let passengers hail autonomous vehicles. So with the world watching, what has the city of 306,000 done to prepare for Uber's unprecedented test? The answer is not much. There have been no public service announcements or demonstrations of the technology. Except for the mayor and one police official, no other top city leader has seen a self-driving Uber vehicle operate up close.

Where did the "cyber" in "cyberspace" come from? Most people, when asked, will probably credit William Gibson, who famously introduced the term in his celebrated 1984 novel, Neuromancer. It came to him while watching some kids play early video games. Searching for a name for the virtual space in which they seemed immersed, he wrote "cyberspace" in his notepad. "As I stared at it in red Sharpie on a yellow legal pad," he later recalled, "my whole delight was that it meant absolutely nothing."

A bunch of startups is using tech to make everyday tasks much easier. One can book flights and buy mobile phone or insurance plans, simply by using a messaging app and chatting with a robot. Remember JARVIS, 'Iron Man' Tony Stark's intelligent assistant who not only controls everything in Stark's house but was also his closest friend. Some thing similar, far from that powerful yet, is available now to more ordinary folks. They are called chatbots, computer programs that can have automated text conversations with users using artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing.

NEC Corporation and the University of Tokyo recently announced the commencement of a comprehensive industry-academia alliance for strengthening innovation in Japan. This alliance differs from others in that it has been created under an organization-to-organization agreement to promote comprehensive collaboration, including the sharing of visions and issues from the fundamental research phase to the commercialization of research results phase, the consideration of social acceptance of research results, and the development of human resources for the future. Among the first actions by this industry-academia alliance for innovation will be considering the magnitude of the impact of AI on society, to conclude the NEC/University of Tokyo Partnership Agreement for Future AI Research and Education in the field of Strategic Artificial Intelligence (AI), and to commence specific activities. Conventional industry-academia alliances have only engaged in limited, small-scale joint research related to individual technologies. However, in order to strengthen Japan's innovation and promote meaningful social changes, it will be imperative to carry out investigations on implications for ethics and legal systems with a focus on commercialization, as well as to create new collaborative alliances that are large in scale and cover broad areas, including human resource development.

PsiberLogic is a completely free, open-source fuzzy logic controller package for Python 3. Psibernetix proudly supports the amazing Python community, and is happy to contribute to Python's open-source movement. This package is for anyone seeking a high-performance, python3-callable package for creating fuzzy logic controllers. Details on ALPHA – a significant breakthrough in the application of what's called genetic-fuzzy systems are published in the most-recent issue of the Journal of Defense Management, as this application is specifically designed for use with Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) in simulated air-combat missions for research purposes. The tools used to create ALPHA as well as the ALPHA project have been developed by Psibernetix, Inc., recently founded by UC College of Engineering and Applied Science 2015 doctoral graduate Nick Ernest, now president and CEO of the firm; as well as David Carroll, programming lead, Psibernetix, Inc.; with supporting technologies and research from Gene Lee; Kelly Cohen, UC aerospace professor; Tim Arnett, UC aerospace doctoral student; and Air Force Research Laboratory sponsors. ALPHA is currently viewed as a research tool for manned and unmanned teaming in a simulation environment.