In the last few years, an increasing amount of public-private initiatives have adopted IoT solutions, ranging from smart grids to energy efficiency applications. The unprecedented growth of the urban population, meanwhile, highlights the importance of increased public-private cooperation in smart cities and the circular economy to deliver more scalable low-carbon development models. For example, IBM's China Research Lab is working with the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau (BEPB) and other municipal authorities in China to scale-up its air quality forecasting system, as part of IBM's Green Horizons Initiative. The system uses pollution data from a network of sensors spread throughout Beijing. Through complex modeling and machine learning techniques, it returns increasingly precise forecasts of air pollution levels in different neighborhoods.

The rise of the chatbot and the fall of the app-based economy have recently taken centre stage, thanks in large part to Mark Zuckerberg's announcement that Facebook was opening up Messenger to third-party bots. The potential for brands to interact with users at the same level they do with their peers is immense. As Kik's Ivar Chan says, "In a world where messenger apps have surpassed social networks, companies need to expand their digital presence to these greenfield pastures." OK, he's a partner at a leading chatbot specialist, so he does have a dog in the fight… but he's also right. This isn't about bots and artificial intelligence, this is about ubiquity of messaging as platform.

Baidu, China's largest search engine, is under investigation after college student with a rare form of cancer said it promoted a fraudulent treatment center. Baidu, China's largest search engine, is under investigation after college student with a rare form of cancer said it promoted a fraudulent treatment center. Chinese health and Internet authorities have launched an investigation into Baidu, the country's largest search engine, following the death of a college student who accused Baidu of misleading him to a fraudulent cancer treatment. Experts believe the scandal will damage the credibility of Baidu's search results, and its long-term economic prospects. On Monday, news of the government investigation caused Baidu's stock to tumble by nearly 8% on the NASDAQ.

The building site of the future is going to look very different to the one we are all used to today. Instead of men in high-visibility jackets and hard hats, there are going to be drones buzzing overhead, robotic bulldozers and 3D printers churning out new structures. That at least is the hope of those making technological solutions. But first they have to convince the traditionally risk-averse construction industry that such change is necessary. US start-up Skycatch is using drones on some high-profile building projects - although it cannot name them because of commercial sensitivity.

When Tor.com published Daniel H. Wilson's short story "The Nostalgist" in 2009, the author wasn't yet a leading voice on robotics in fiction. Sure, the Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. had won a Rave Award from WIRED in 2006 for his book How To Survive A Robot Uprising, but his bestselling novel Robopocalypse was still a few years off. So when filmmaker Giacomo Cimini wanted to adapt Wilson's story into a film, it wasn't a big ask. After Wilson's novel hit big, though--with Stephen Spielberg and Drew Goddard tapped to direct and write the movie adaptation--the writer had to take more time to think about it. "I was just this Italian director living in London who wanted to adapt one of his short stories," says Cimini.

About one in four owners of premium cars would buy a self-driving vehicle, according to Volvo's chief executive, who has vowed to make the technology affordable. Håkan Samuelsson said Volvo had had a deluge of interest in its "Drive me" trial in London next year, when 100 drivers will test its new autonomous driving technology on motorways and major roads. The Swedish carmaker plans to start selling vehicles equipped with the technology as early as 2020. Volvo will test the technology in Gothenburg this year. It is also looking into conducting a trial in China, where congestion and road safety are major issues.

Think of the gear you can't live without: The smartphone you constantly check. The camera that goes with you on every vacation. The TV that serves as a portal to binge-watching and -gaming. Each owes its influence to one model that changed the course of technology for good. Some of these, like Sony's Walkman, were the first of their kind. Others, such as the iPod, propelled an existing idea into the mainstream. Some were unsuccessful commercially, but influential nonetheless. And a few represent exciting but unproven new concepts (looking at you Oculus Rift). Rather than rank technologies--writing, electricity, and so on--we chose to rank gadgets, the devices by with consumers let the future creep into their present. The list--which is ordered by influence--was assembled and deliberated on at (extreme) length by TIME's technology and business editors, writers and reporters.

Google may have DeepMind, but Baidu, China's homegrown Google, has Deep Speech. Deep Speech, which debuted in December 2015, is a speech recognition system that uses an artificial neural network to translate audio input directly to transcribed output. By contrast, most speech recognition systems, including Siri, use multiple, engineer-crafted steps to make translations. The system has learned how to recognize and transcribe both English and Mandarin, and according to a Baidu paper released in February 2016, it has a recognition rate that is more accurate than most native Mandarin speakers. Baidu announced earlier in April that it will begin rolling out the deep speech technology in collaboration with Peel, a smart remote app that will be available in both English and Mandarin for Android, followed by iOS.

It's not only drones and driverless cars that may become the norm someday -- ocean-faring ships might also run without captains or crews. The Pentagon on Monday showed off the world's largest unmanned surface vessel, a self-driving 132-foot ship able to travel up to 10,000 nautical miles on its own to hunt for stealthy submarines and underwater mines. The military's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, in conjunction with the Navy will be testing the ship off the San Diego coast over the next two years to observe how it interacts with other vessels and avoids collisions. Unlike smaller, remote-controlled craft launched from ships, the so-called "Sea Hunter" is built to operate on its own. "It's not a joy-stick ship," said DARPA spokesman Jared B. Adams, standing in front of the sleek, futuristic-looking steel-gray vessel docked at a maritime terminal in the heart of San Diego's shipbuilding district, where TV crews filmed the robotic craft.

It's not only drones and driverless cars that may become the norm someday -- ocean-faring ships might also run without captains or crews. The Pentagon on Monday showed off the world's largest unmanned surface vessel, a self-driving 132-foot ship able to travel up to 10,000 nautical miles on its own to hunt for stealthy submarines and underwater mines. The military's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, in conjunction with the Navy will be testing the ship off the San Diego coast over the next two years to observe how it interacts with other vessels and avoids collisions. Unlike smaller, remote-controlled craft launched from ships, the so-called "Sea Hunter" is built to operate on its own. "It's not a joy-stick ship," said DARPA spokesman Jared B. Adams, standing in front of the sleek, futuristic-looking steel-gray vessel docked at a maritime terminal in the heart of San Diego's shipbuilding district, where TV crews filmed the robotic craft.