DALLAS/HOUSTON/LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON – When Dallas police improvised a bomb-carrying robot to kill a sniper, they also kicked off an ethical debate about technology's use as a crime-fighting weapon. In what appears to be an unprecedented tactic, police rigged a bomb-disposal robot to kill an armed suspect in the fatal shootings of five officers in Dallas. While there doesn't appear to be any hard data on the subject, security experts and law enforcement officials said they couldn't recall another time when police deployed a robot with lethal intent. The strategy opens a new chapter in the escalating use of remote-controlled and semi-autonomous devices to fight crime and protect lives. It also raises new questions over when it's appropriate to dispatch a robot to kill dangerous suspects instead of continuing to negotiate their surrender.

Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. When Dallas police used a bomb-carrying robot to kill a sniper, they also kicked off an ethical debate about technology's use as a crime-fighting weapon.

This week, self-driving Tesla had a fatal crash. Other than that – a lot about robots, can AI create an art, cloning animals and more! Ray Kurzweil and people like him believe the Singularity is just behind the corner and promise the new perfect world. They are very optimistic about the future. But sometimes you should listen to the other side to better understand the problem or vision.

After sniper fire struck 12 police officers at a rally in downtown Dallas, killing five, police cornered a single suspect in a parking garage. After a prolonged exchange of gunfire and a five-hour-long standoff, police made what experts say was an unprecedented decision: to send in a police robot, jury-rigged with a bomb. "We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was," Dallas Police Chief David Brown told a news conference Friday. "Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger. The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb."

Cisco Live 2016 kicks off next week in Las Vegas, and Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Alan Lepofsky will be in attendance. Lepofsky heads up Constellations' research into the Future of Work, focusing on collaboration software and emerging technologies that are changing the way people do their jobs. I spoke with him in advance of Cisco Live for a preview of what he's expecting at the conference, as well as an overview of current and future trends in the collaboration space. What follows is an edited transcript of that conversation. CRInsights: What are your thoughts on Cisco's current big bet in collaboration software, Spark?

Wang Yuheng, who won China's'The Brain' last year, beats AIipay AI in facial recognition contest. Wang Yuheng, who is famous in China for his exceptional memory and observation skills, won against artificial intelligence (AI) robot "Mark" in a three-round facial recognition challenge. The live challenge, according to International Business Times, was a publicity stunt held by the largest digital payment service in China, Alipay. Alipay has just launched "Mark," a facial recognition AI feature for its service. Alipay invited Wang, who rose to fame after joining and winning Chinese reality television contest "The Brain" in 2014, to a face-off with Mark.

The Juno space probe is now in orbit around Jupiter, meaning space buffs around the world are eagerly awaiting whatever new data the probe sends back. One of those space buffs is science fiction author Stephen Baxter, who recently collaborated with Alastair Reynolds on the novel The Medusa Chronicles. The book is an authorized sequel to Arthur C. Clarke's famous 1971 novella "A Meeting with Medusa," about an astronaut who discovers intelligent life on Jupiter. "All this comes from Carl Sagan, the great astronomer, who hypothesized that somewhere in Jupiter's deep cloud layers … you could have a great ocean, a gaseous ocean, where gigantic creatures could live," Baxter says in Episode 211 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Baxter is well-positioned to carry on Clarke's legacy, having collaborated with Clarke on four novels, a process that was sometimes complicated by the fact that the two men lived on different continents.

The Dallas PD's actions appear to mark the first time in US history authorities have used a robot or drone armed with a bomb to kill a civilian. This comes at a time when police forces across the nation are being criticized and scrutinized for using military-style tools. After a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, in Ferguson, Missouri, last year, riots broke out in the area and police responded with weapons, vehicles and gear intended for military use. Images of Ferguson police in military-style body armor holding assault rifles sparked a debate about the militarization of police forces across the United States. Armed robots are the latest tool to transition from the battlefield to civilian life.

Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. When Dallas police used a bomb-carrying robot to kill a sniper, they also kicked off an ethical debate about technology's use as a crime-fighting weapon.

A robot carrying an explosive device was used to kill one of the shooters in Thursday night's horrific violence in Dallas, Texas, in what many law enforcement and other experts are calling the first such use of robotics technology by U.S. police. Five police officers were killed and seven others were wounded, along with two civilians, during a demonstration protesting the recent deaths of two African-American men at the hands of police in other cities. Micah Johnson, the man suspected of shooting the officers, was killed by remotely detonated explosives on the robot after a standoff and failed negotiations with police. Toby Walsh, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, cautions against seeing this use of a robot as a nightmarish science-fiction scenario--because the robot was being operated by a human via remote control. "In [that] sense, it was no more taking us down the road to killer robots than the remote-controlled Predator drones flying above the skies of Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere," Walsh told Scientific American in an email.