It's graduation season here in the US, and the job market is busier than ever. For Softbank's emotion-reading Pepper robot, however, landing a gig seems to have been easy as pie. MasterCard today announced that Pepper will soon be implemented in Pizza Hut restaurants in Singapore to take orders and process payments. They do so by "greeting" Pepper and pairing a MasterPass account to Pepper's attached tablet. Then, Pepper will take your order and allow you to customize it however you like without any side-eyeing or risk of getting spit in your food.

Pizza Hut Asia and MasterCard have partnered to bring Pepper, SoftBank Robotic's humanoid robot, to restaurants by the end of this year to enhance in-store customer service. Pizza Hut Asia will be piloting Pepper for order-taking and personalised engagement. This marks the first commercial application for Pepper, according to MasterCard. Pepper, which was unveiled on Tuesday, will be powered by MasterPass, the global digital payment service from MasterCard that connects consumers with merchants, enabling them to make digital payments across channels and devices. MasterPass extends the robot's ability to integrate customer service, access to information and sales into a seamless and consistent user experience.

A bestselling author has reportedly predicted that the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) could have an outcome that is more anticlimactic than even seen in doomsday movies. In his upcoming novel Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, author Yuval Noah Harari has described a bleak future for humankind, where instead of being completely wiped out by robotic beings, humans face a bleaker future of being rendered completely useless. A lecturer and historian at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, Harari believes AI will be successful in doing exactly as we fear. Machines will take over society and leave humans jobless and aimless. In fact, according to the author, the destructive powers of artificial intelligence have already started to take control and there are many areas where AI has performed better than people.

The Afghan Taliban confirmed on Wednesday that their leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a U.S. drone strike last week and that they have appointed a successor -- a scholar known for extremist views who is unlikely to back a peace process with Kabul. The announcement came as a suicide bomber struck a minibus carrying court employees in the Afghan capital, killing at least 11 people, an official said. The Taliban promptly claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement sent to the media, the Taliban said their new leader is Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, one of Mansour's two deputies. The insurgent group said he was chosen at a meeting of Taliban leaders, which is believed to have taken place in Pakistan, but offered no other details.

China plans to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) products market to over US 15 billion by speeding up the manufacturing of products like robots, home appliances and mobile phones as part of efforts to develop new technologies to reorient its sluggish economy. China will speed up the development of its artificial intelligence sector and create a market worth more than 100 billion yuan (US 15.26 billion) over the next three years, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement. By 2018, China shall build platforms for fundamental AI resources and innovation and make breakthroughs on basic core technology, the three-year implementation programme for'Internet Plus' artificial intelligence said. Under the plan, China will cultivate and develop emerging artificial intelligence industries, promote innovation in intelligent products and enhance the intelligence level of terminal products. The programme will involve key projects such as intelligent home appliances, smart automobiles, intelligent unmanned systems, intelligent wearable devices and robots.

Last month we discussed the fact that officials had approved the latest Five Year Plan for China's economy. The ultimate goal of the plan is to overtake Germany, Japan, and the United States in terms of manufacturing sophistication by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. To make that happen, the government needs Chinese manufacturers to adopt robots by the millions. It also wants Chinese companies to start producing more of these robots,, and to enable that there is an initiative making billions of yuan available for manufacturers to upgrade to technologies including advanced machinery and robots. The manufacturing hub for the electronics industry, Kunshan, in Jiangsu province is proving that that initiative is well underway.

The Afghan Taliban confirmed on Wednesday that their leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a U.S. drone strike last week and that they have appointed a successor -- a scholar known for extremist views who is unlikely to back a peace process with Kabul. The announcement came as a suicide bomber struck a minibus carrying court employees in the Afghan capital, killing at least 10 people, an official said. The Taliban promptly claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement sent to the media, the Taliban said their new leader is Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, one of Mansour's two deputies. The insurgent group said he was chosen at a meeting of Taliban leaders, which is believed to have taken place in Pakistan, but offered no other details.

German sportswear manufacturer Adidas announced Tuesday that it would resume production of shoes in Germany more than 20 years after it stopped making them in its home country. Completely overhauling the way it produces shoes, the world's second-largest sportswear maker said its new "Speedfactory" will use robots, as opposed to the manual process the company employs in its manufacturing hubs in Asia. In a statement, Adidas said "the first pairs of high-performance footwear to come out of the Adidas Speedfactory will be revealed later this year." However, the still under-construction "Speedfactory facility will begin large-scale production in 2017." The new production facility is being designed to speed up manufacturing and also bring it closer to the company's big European markets.

A suicide bomber killed at least 10 people and wounded four on Wednesday in an attack on a bus carrying staff from an appeal court west of the Afghan capital, Kabul, officials said, and the Taliban claimed responsibility. The attack came on the same day the Taliban announced a new leader to succeed Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike at the weekend. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack on staff from the judicial system was in response to the Afghan government's decision earlier this month to execute six Taliban prisoners on death row. Other attacks would follow, he said. "We will continue on this path," he said in a statement.

The Afghan Taliban Wednesday confirmed the appointment of a new leader following the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a U.S. drone strike last week. This is the group's first official confirmation that Mansour was killed. In a statement sent to media, the Taliban declared that their new leader is Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, one of two of Mansour's deputies. It said he was chosen at a meeting of Taliban leaders, which was believed to have been held in Pakistan. The U.S. military carried out an airstrike Saturday targeting Mullah Akhtar Mansour (seen in this undated handout photograph by the Taliban) in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.