In the growing race to emerge the leader in self-driving technology, Yamaha hopes the third time is the charm as it attempts to break into the car market and to incorporate self-driving technology into motorcycles. However, the firm's CEO acknowledges that it will most likely take close to a decade to bring the autonomous technology to two-wheelers on a commercial basis. Yamaha launched these efforts with moderate investments of near 20 million in Silicon Valley, where it established a company last summer, in order to discover the latest technologies in autonomous vehicles, robotics and drones. It invested 2 million in a US startup, Veniam, back in February, attracted by the startup's connected vehicle expertise. "It's not a sense of crisis, but I want to make sure we stay ahead of the race," CEO Hiroyuki Yanagi explained.

A team from China plans to challenge Google's AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence (AI) programme that beat a world-class player in the ancient board game Go, the state-owned Shanghai Securities News reported on Thursday. Scientists from the China Computer Go team will issue a challenge to AlphaGo by the end of 2016, said attendees at an event in Beijing organised by the Chinese Go Association and the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, according to the report. It did not elaborate on the nature of the challenge. Scientists from the China Computer Go team will issue a challenge to AlphaGo by the end of 2016, said attendees at an event in Beijing. Google's AlphaGo computer recently beat champion Lee Sedol (pictured right) 4-1 in a 1milllion ( 706,388) challenge. The first game mastered by a computer was noughts and crosses (also known as tic-tac-toe) in 1952.

Robotic systems and unmanned vehicles are playing an ever-growing role in the US military - but don't expect to see Terminator-style droids striding across the battlefield just yet. A top Pentagon official on Wednesday gave a tantalizing peek into several projects that not long ago were the stuff of science fiction, including missile-dodging satellites, self-flying F-16 fighters and robot naval fleets. Though the Pentagon is not planning to build devices that can kill without human input, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work hinted that could change if enemies with fewer qualms create such machines. 'We might be going up against a competitor that is more willing to delegate authority to machines than we are, and as that competition unfolds we will have to make decisions on how we best can compete,' he said. Work, who helps lead Pentagon efforts to ensure the US military keeps its technological edge, described several initiatives, including one dubbed'Loyal Wingman' that would see the Air Force convert an F-16 warplane into a semi-autonomous and unmanned fighter that flies alongside a manned F-35 jet.

Child care is a hard job, but somebody, or something, has got to do it. Japanese researchers have developed androids to meet that need, which includes happily reading that fairy tale again and again and again. The androids, which were created by a team of education and robotics specialists at a research facility in Abiko, Chiba Prefecture, are part of a larger system called RoHo Care. Short for Robotic Hoikujo (day care center), RoHo is being touted as a high-tech solution to the staffing crisis that forced the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to announce emergency measures this week. "I never thought I'd see this day, but we're now confident that RoHo could blaze a trail for child care worldwide," said team leader Makoto Hara.

The company said Thursday its staff pledged to reduce hierarchical practices, unnecessary meetings and excessive working hours in a "Startup Samsung" ceremony held at its headquarters in Suwon, South Korea. Requiring all its executives to sign a statement promising to scrap the company's traditional authoritarian ways. Samsung is searching for new business strategies as a father-to-son leadership transition looms. Lee Jae-yong, 48, is expected to succeed his ailing father, Lee Kun-hee, at a time when Samsung's mainstay semiconductor and phone businesses face intensifying competition from Chinese rivals. Samsung has its eye on expanding into health care and pharmaceuticals, but has lagged Silicon Valley in embracing trends such as autonomous driving and artificial intelligence.

David Shing, or simply'Shingy,' is well-known in technology circles. And for good reason, he's AOL's energetic and up-beat'Digital Prophet' – oft jetting around the world to talk about the future of technology. But how long will Shingy's (and other similar roles) survive? Not all that long perhaps, if McCann's hiring of an artificially intelligent creative director in its Japanese office is anything to go by. This year's edition of TNW Conference in Amsterdam includes some of the biggest names in tech.

Facebook launched a concierge service called M through its Messenger app in 2015. M can purchase items, get gifts delivered, book restaurants, and make travel arrangements for the user. There is an element of the Mechanical Turk about it at the moment as it is powered by a combination of AI and real-life people. Siri has been around for a few years but has been upgraded in that time. It's now capable of showing the user specific photos he or she has taken, ordering things via ecommerce apps and giving directions.

Russian combat engineers arrived Thursday in Syria on a mission to clear mines in the ancient town of Palmyra, the military said. The Defense Ministry said the sapper units were airlifted to Syria with an array of equipment, including state-of-the art robotic devices, to defuse mines at the 2,000-year-old archaeological site. Russian television stations showed Il-76 transport planes carrying the engineers landing before dawn at the Russian air base in Syria. Sunday's recapture of Palmyra by Syrian troops under the cover of Russian airstrikes was an important victory over Islamic State extremists who operated a 10-month reign of terror there. Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the military's General Staff said that Russian military advisers had helped plan and direct the Syrian army's operation to recapture Palmyra.

The crash of oil prices and slowdown of China's economy have fetched headlines in media off late. The subject has encouraged me to understand economic reasons and relate the implications for Indian services industries. It would be good to preempt a discussion on the topic whether what could happen to Chinese manufacturing or to Middle-East Oil industry could repeat for Indian IT? If so, what should India do to prepare itself today to face this future? You are in the final lap of your early morning dream and the alarm goes off at 6AM.

CAMBRIDGE – How can we improve the state of the world? How can we make countries more competitive, growth more sustainable and inclusive, and genders more equal? One way is to have a correct theory of the relationship between actions and outcomes and then to implement actions that achieve our goals. But, in most of the situations we face, we lack such a theory, or if we have one, we are not sure that it is correct. Should we postpone action until we learn about what works? But how will we learn if we do not act?