Google is trying to get rid of the "10,000 steps" target amid claims it could actually hold people back from getting more fit. Many fitness trackers use the goal as a way of motivating people to get moving: 10,000 steps is an achievable but significant target for people as they try and get fitter. But the new version of the company's health app drops that target and instead encourages people to fill rings in ways that allow them to better track their physical activity. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

A Russian weapons company unveiled a massive gold robot this week. A well-known Russian weapons manufacturing company has unveiled a 13-foot golden walking killer robot that looks like something out of "RoboCop." Kalashnikov Concern presented a large, strange-looking bulletproof robot that's in development at the Army 2018 fair near Moscow and posted a video of the machine on its website. The gold robot, which the company calls a "controlled bipedal walker," reportedly weighs 4.5 tons and can hold objects with its claws, potentially including weapons. A cabin can be seen behind the robot's glass panels where people could sit and operate it from inside.

'The chief economist of the Bank of England has warned that the UK will need a skills revolution to avoid "large swathes" of people becoming "technologically unemployed" as artificial intelligence makes many jobs obsolete. Andy Haldane said the possible disruption of what is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution could be "on a much greater scale" than anything felt during the First Industrial Revolution of the Victorian era. He said that he had seen a widespread "hollowing out" of the jobs market, rising inequality, social tension and many people struggling to make a living. It was important to learn the "lessons of history", he argued, and ensure that people were given the training to take advantage of the new jobs that would become available. He added that in the past a safety net such as new welfare benefits had also been provided.

An Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) would be a machine capable of understanding the world as well as any human, and with the same capacity to learn how to carry out a huge range of tasks. AGI doesn't exist, but has featured in science-fiction stories for more than a century, and been popularized in modern times by films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fictional depictions of AGI vary widely, although tend more towards the dystopian vision of intelligent machines eradicating or enslaving humanity, as seen in films like The Matrix or The Terminator. In such stories, AGI is often cast as either indifferent to human suffering or even bent on mankind's destruction. In contrast, utopian imaginings, such as Iain M Banks' Culture civilization novels, cast AGI as benevolent custodians, running egalitarian societies free of suffering, where inhabitants can pursue their passions and technology advances at a breathless pace. Whether these ideas would bear any resemblance to real-world AGI is unknowable since nothing of the sort has been created, or, according to many working in the field of AI, is even close to being created.

The news has always played an essential role in our lives, keeping us informed about the world and the issues we care about. But the fact is, while there is a sea bad news, there is also a plethora of "good news" happening where people are making progress solving real issues. The Google Assistant is now making this kind of news easier to find. "Tell me something good" is a new experimental feature for Assistant users in the US that delivers your daily dose of good news. Just say "Hey Google, tell me something good" to receive a brief news summary about people who are solving problems for our communities and our world, the company said in a blog post.

Artificial intelligence is being used to develop robots and drones that can operate more autonomously, allowing them to explore dangerous places beyond the reach of humans and animals. The Swiss government is now testing this technology to see how it could be used in disaster situations. Specialists from the Robotics and Perception Groupexternal link at the University of Zurich have developed a small drone that can fly through a collapsed building and find people – without a remote control. They've been testing it at a military test site in Wangen an der Aare near Bern. At the same time, developers at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systemsexternal link at the Swiss federal technology institute ETH Zurich are working on a four-legged robot called ANYmal. Equipped with laser sensors and cameras, it's designed to do work that is too dangerous for humans and animals.

The chief economist of Bank of England, Andy Haldane alerted that the UK will need to avoid "large swathes" of people becoming "technologically unemployed" as a result of using artificial intelligence across industries. Haldane said: "Each of those [industrial revolutions] had a wrenching and lengthy impact on the jobs market, on the lives and livelihoods of large swathes of society," Mr Haldane told me for the Today Programme. "Jobs were effectively taken by machines of various types, there was a hollowing out of the jobs market, and that left a lot of people for a lengthy period out of work and struggling to make a living. "That heightened social tensions, it heightened financial tensions, it led to a rise in inequality. "That hollowing out is going to be potentially on a much greater scale in the future, when we have machines both thinking and doing--replacing both the cognitive and the technical skills of humans."

Technology experts have uncovered a vast misinformation campaign attempting to spread stories on a hugescale. Facebook, and Twitter have found and removed hundreds of accounts that were apparently set up to target users in the US, UK, Latin America and the Middle East. But it is not clear what the campaign was being used for. The accounts appear to have been tied to Iranian actors and cybersecurity firms said they had appeared to be promoting Iran's geopolitical agenda around the world. But whether the campaign was being set up to launch any more specific or targeted attack remains unclear.

The Internet of Things is the network of smart devices like phones, computers, vehicles, home appliances, etc. which are embedded with sensors, software, actuators, and connectivity which makes communication possible between the devices. Communication between devices is in the form of exchange of data, or it can also be conversational. This helps in integrating our devices of daily use into the computer-based world so that we may control them through computers. It results in more efficient processes, reduced human intervention and economic benefits. IoT is a popular topic these days. It is predicted that by 2020, there will be 30 million IoT devices in the world.

It's hard to make a case for the "sudden" development of something that has been a formal topic of research for more than 60 years. Attending presentations on Artificial Intelligence (AI) at three recent conferences and following that up with extensive reading does, however, suggest that all of us engaged in teaching-training-learning need to be familiar with recent AI developments and projects that are rapidly changing our world. The April 2018 Unconference for Dreamers, Doers, and Drivers Shaping the Future of Learning, held on an Arizona State University campus and previously discussed here on the Top of Mind blog by The Tambellini Group Senior Analyst Alex Freeman, paid ample attention to AI. Developments in all three areas are continuing to open doors to potential collaborations between learning facilitators, learners, and machines in ways that may foster more dynamic, engaging, and results-oriented learning experiences for those we serve in our lifelong-learning environments. Examples cited by Keller include customizable learning experiences, student-persistence prediction, unbiased grading systems, more sophisticated and useful teacher-student performance analytics, suggested learning paths, better ways of matching students and teachers in learners' moments of need, and detecting fraudulent activity in the learning process. Unconference participants walked away from Keller's presentation and their subsequent explorations of the topic with a commitment to "design blueprints for an AI-enabled virtual assistant for teaching, learning and advising, factoring in expanded functionalities over the next 5, 10, and 20 years," the ShapingEDU "10 Actions to Shape the Future of Education" communique confirms.