On Thursday, we asked Google about its new custom-made chip for artificial intelligence called a Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU. Google politely declined to answer Recode's questions, saying only that "more information is coming later." Later in the day, after we posted our questions, Google changed its mind and gave us some short answers to a few -- but not all -- of our questions, via an email from a spokesperson. This is a big one that Google did not answer. It probably is pre-trained, but we don't know for sure.

Today, Google convened 7,000 developers and journalists at a popular outdoor concert venue in Silicon Valley and gave a two-hour state of the union on the future of arguably the most powerful and ambitious company in the world. In front of a packed crowd and tens of thousands watching via live stream, the company brought its best and brightest minds on stage and unveiled to the world that Google is playing catch-up with a slew of products and services we've already seen before from other companies. There's Google Assistant, a conversational AI chat and search bot (Facebook's M/Microsoft's bot projects/Apple's Siri/Viv/literally everyone has a bot these days); Google Home, a voice-powered home entertainment and task hub (Amazon's dreadfully popular and beloved Echo); Allo and Duo, two mobile messaging and mobile video apps (Facebook's Messenger goliath with nearly 1 billion users); and Daydream, Google's Android-powered virtual reality platform, headset, and multimedia content hub (Oculus). But make no mistake, Google, led by its fresh-faced, immaculately tailored blue jacket–wearing CEO, Sundar Pichai, didn't tiptoe around the stage today. Quite the opposite, Google's 2016 I/O keynote address was confident, enthusiastic, and more than just a little impressive.

Paul Herzlich works in Google's legal department and helped develop a special sensor for "pressure sores" by those who use wheelchairs. Paul Herzlich works in Google's legal department and helped develop a special sensor for "pressure sores" by those who use wheelchairs. For most of us, eye tracking technology sounds interesting. Eye tracking allows users to move a cursor around a computer or mobile device simply by moving your eyes and head. Oded Ben Dov initially used eye tracking technology to develop a video game that he showed off on Israeli TV.

These last few months have presented some complicated security stories, and this week we took steps to untangle them. We looked at the many, many ways in which the FBI hacks people, revelations of which have been trickling out for decades. And we broke down just how hackers were able to lift 81 million from a Bangladeshi bank in a matter of hours--well short of their billion-dollar goal, but still a hefty sum, cleverly obtained. In the world of software, Google has finally offered end-to-end encryption in its messaging products. It's Allo and Duo, new chat and video apps that use the stalwart end-to-end encryption known as Signal. On Allo, end-to-end kicks in only when you're in incognito mode, which we guess is better than nothing.

Google is announcing a new messaging app today. It's called Allo and its main feature is a Google assistant that's built right in. Google says it'll be available later this summer -- for free -- on both iOS and Android. Allo (pronounced like "Aloe" and not like "'allo, guv'nor!") is a mobile-only app that you might think is meant to replace Google's other messaging app, Hangouts. Allo is explicitly meant to be a fresh start for Google's new communication's division (which also runs Hangouts and Project Fi). "It's really liberating to start from scratch sometimes," says Erik Kay, director of engineering, communications products.

By rights, Yuval Noah Harari should be an anonymous academic buried in an obscure university department somewhere toiling away on his somewhat dusty discipline – medieval military history. He's a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and there is almost nothing in his background to suggest that he would write a book that has become one of the most talked about non-fiction bestsellers of the year – Sapiens. Or that he'd join the globetrotting TED-ocracy: the academic superstars who travel the world delivering keynotes on zeitgeisty topics, in Harari's case, the not inconsiderable subject of the history of the whole of mankind. When I meet him, he's just been the star turn at Penguin Random House's global sales conference. In May, he packed out Hay. Earlier this month, he delivered a TED talk.

Oussama Khatib held his breath as he swam through the wreck of La Lune, 100 meters below the Mediterranean. The flagship of King Louis XIV sank here in 1664, 20 miles off the southern coast of France, and no human had touched the ruins – or the countless treasures and artifacts the ship once carried – in the centuries since. OceanOne, a humanoid robotic diver from Stanford, allows new underwater exploration capabilities. With guidance from a team of skilled deep-sea archaeologists who had studied the site, Khatib, a professor of computer science at Stanford, spotted a grapefruit-size vase. He hovered precisely over the vase, reached out, felt its contours and weight, and stuck a finger inside to get a good grip.

Editor's note: This is the first of two articles exploring the role of the IT channel in robotic process automation. Part one provides an overview of how IT services firms expect to benefit from software robots, while part two examines deployment models, labor issues and the technology's future. This expert handbook explores opportunities in enterprise mobility market, delving into detail on those with the greatest potential return for VARs, systems integrators and IT consultants. This email address is already registered. By submitting my Email address I confirm that I have read and accepted the Terms of Use and Declaration of Consent.

On a very warm afternoon in April, the image of a bald young white man's head floated on a gray screen at the Kitchen, in Chelsea. The man spoke in a tone that shifted worryingly between aggressive and confessional, punctuating his lines with two disembodied hands. "And I could have been your haruspex, sexy," he said at one point, snarling. "I could have read omens in your extricated liver." There were pale red marks beneath his eyes, a five-o'clock shadow on his jaw.

An internet pioneer who first taught the world how to find friendship, love, and sex online a quarter century ago is trying to determine at what point artificial intelligence develops emotional intelligence, and he thinks he can do it with an art contest. About 31 different robots competed for 100,000 in prizes at the first annual International Robot Art Competition. The vote was based on 2,200 votes cast on Facebook as well as judgment from six art critics who have experience working with technology. The fan and judge favorite was TAIDA from the National Taiwan University. TAIDA won first place and 30,000 for several Pointillism-style works, including a still life of fruit, landscape of the Taiwan coast, and a portrait of Albert Einstein.