The archerfish has a unique claim to fame, being able to shoots down prey by spitting water at them. Now, the US Navy is set to use the same principle to shoot explosives and underwater mines. It has bought 22m robot Archerfish from BAE, which can be launched from a helicopter to search and destroy mines in the sea. The Archerfish system from BAE can be launched from a helicopter to search for, then destroy mines in the sea. It can be launched from ships, helicopters and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).

Rodney Brooks wasn't willing in 2002 to hazard a guess about when the challenges of robotics would be overcome. "Not in two years or three years," Brooks asserted during an IndustryWeek interview that year. "But is it going to be here in 30 years or 40 years? I'm not quite prepared [to make a prediction]." Still in a book published then and the interview, he gave us a peak at what it would look like when it arrived: "robots that take instruction easily rather than ones that require hours of programming time; robots that can help in small-batch operations rather than ones that only make financial sense in continuous or nearly continuous fixed operation settings with long runs; robots with social interaction skills;" and robots that reduce costs on the factory floor.

Actor and writer Wil Wheaton wants to "add an A to the STEM acronym and make it STEAM." He'll be speaking at the USA Science and Engineering Festival April 16-17 in Washington about why he thinks the arts should be represented in the acronym commonly used when referring to the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Wheaton, 43, best known for his role as Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in the 1980s and '90s and more recently as a fictionalized version of himself on "The Big Bang Theory," says that he has always been fascinated by science and technology, and has made it a goal of his to ensure that kids get the encouragement they need to pursue those fields. Wheaton spoke with U.S. News by phone about why he got involved in the festival, how science fiction and fact have shaped his life and career and why he thinks it should be "science, technology, engineering, arts and math." How did you get involved with the USA Science and Engineering Festival?

Authors from the Australian National University, Monash and La Trobe provide the most complete answer yet: the size of a flaccid penis can significantly affect how attractive a man's body is to women. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (a journal commonly known by its initials as PNAS), Brian Mautz, Bob Wong, Richard Peters and Michael Jennions use a clever experimental manipulation of computer-generated imagery - CGI - to test the effects of variation in penis size relative to height and torso shape (shoulder width relative to waist width) on the attractiveness of male bodies to women. How important is penis size? Authors from the Australian National University, Monash and La Trobe provide the most complete answer yet: the size of a flaccid penis can significantly affect how attractive a man's body is to women While researchers found that torso shape was by far the most important determinant of attractiveness, penis size has about as much influence on attractiveness as height. It has been suggests that women favor slightly larger than average penises.

Armed drones could take to the air for testing alongside US fighter pilots as early as 2018. The Air Force's'Loyal Wingman' program aims to pair fifth generation fighter jets with unmanned older craft, using computer algorithms to give pilots control of the drones. The initiative would allow a drone to take the lead in navigating dangerous environments, pinpointing targets without putting a human pilot at risk. The Air Force's'Loyal Wingman' program aims to pair fifth generation fighter jets with unmanned older craft, using computer algorithms to give pilots remote control of the drones. The'Loyal Wingman' program would see the Air Force convert an older craft, like the F-16 warplane, into a semi-autonomous and unmanned fighter that flies alongside a fifth generation craft, like the F-35 jet.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your low-cost Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. The Super Mini Cheetah was developed at MIT as a "low-cost, easily replicable" quadruped robot platform. The MIT Super Mini Cheetah is an inexpensive and lightweight quadrupedal robot that is capable of behaviors such as running, walking, jumping and turning.

The debate over how robots could affect employment has been going on for more than a century. Those who rage against the machine say robots will steal our jobs, make us their slaves, and then kill us. Others believe robots are the key to ultimate freedom from work that humans find dull or dangerous. Some robots could climb stairs, others could pick up and place objects, while others could drive you around the sidewalk without you exerting any effort. The majority of executives at the conference explained how robots are here to rescue us from manual labor and will help to make our companies leaner, more profitable, more consistent, and more competitive.

When trying to communicate with future customers, it's important to strike the right tone. When it isn't right, as in the case of Microsoft's Tay, things can spin out of control quickly. That's why more companies are trying to understand how to integrate emotional intelligence into the machines that interact with people. In 2015, GE inaugurated a new, Multi-Modal manufacturing facility in Chakan, India. If the company's ambitions for the space are realized, it could drive a massive change in global manufacturing.

Real-world artificial-intelligence applications are popping up in unexpected places--and much sooner than you might think. While winning a game of Go might be impressive, machine intelligence is also evolving to the point where it can be used by more people to do more things. That's how four engineers with almost zero knowledge of Japanese were able to create software, in just a few months, that can decipher handwriting in the language. The programmers at Reactive Inc. came up with an application that recognizes scrawled-out Japanese with 98.66 percent accuracy. The 18-month-old startup in Tokyo is part of a growing global community of coders and investors who are harnessing the power of neural networks to put AI to far more practical purposes than answering trivia or winning board games.

Singapore: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., a US-based information technology (IT) firm with most of its employees working out of India, expects its business growth in the Asia-Pacific region to outpace the company average this year, maintaining the trend seen in recent years, Jayajyoti Sengupta, president and Asia-Pacific head, said in an interview. Automation, which includes robots, machine learning and artificial intelligence, will be among the new frontiers for Cognizant, as rote and repetitive processes become "digital, instrumented, analyzed and intelligent", he said. Cognizant has said it expects its revenue growth to slow to between 10% and 14.3% for the calendar year 2016. How do you see the situation in the Asia-Pacific? It would be pertinent to note that Cognizant's growth of 21% in calendar 2015 included revenues from the acquisition of TriZetto.