Surgeons have praised the pioneering use of robots in saving a record number of men from one of the UK's deadliest cancers. The £1 million machines, known as Da Vinci robots, have performed life-saving surgery at University College London Hospitals on more than 500 men with advanced prostate cancer. Surgeons credit them with being quicker, safer and the procedures have fewer side effects than existing treatments in a move that has been described as a'game changer'. Many men delay prostate cancer treatment over fears they may suffer incurable erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence. Prostate cancer is the most common form of the disease in men and the second biggest killer in men after lung cancer, causing 11,300 UK deaths a year. An internal 3D camera displays instantaneous images to the surgeon's high-definition console David Ferris, a Londoner with'aggressive' prostate cancer underwent robotic surgery to remove his prostate at University Collage London Hospital carried out by consultant urological surgeon Greg Shaw'It gives men their lives back after prostate cancer' Professor John Kelly, clinical lead for urology at University College London Hospitals at Westmoreland Street hospital, said: 'Although [conventional] surgery removes the cancerous tumour, patients are left with life-changing after-effects like incontinence and impotence, which can be devastating.

We hope you're enjoying the European Robotics Week! If you're still looking for events to attend over the weekend, make sure to check out the map of 1000 happenings all over Europe. One highlight was the European Robotics League competition focused on service robotics with teams from Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and Portugal. The teams had to show how their robots can assist old people in their daily life, all in an attrezzo that simulates a home. The central event of the week was held in Brussels, and featured a "Robots Discovery" exhibition hosted by the European Committee of the Regions, where robotics experts from 30 European and regionally-funded projects outlined how their work could impact society.

The challenge will be to train the driverless delivery van bringing my parcels when I'm out to proceed up the drive, squeeze up a 2ft-wide path, turn left to the side garage door and leave the goods on the bench. Oh, and to be careful reversing out.

In summer 1972 Anthony Hopkins was chosen to play a leading role in a film based on George Feifer's novel The Girl from Petrovka. Not having the book himself, he went to London to buy a copy but none of the main London bookstores had one. On his journey home, however, waiting for an underground train at Leicester Square station he saw a discarded book lying on the seat next to him. It was The Girl from Petrovka! The story gets even weirder.

New research has posited that artificial intelligence will increasingly automate operations for the wind and solar industries, boosting their efficiencies in areas such as decision making and planning, condition monitoring, robotics, and inspections. The new position paper published this week by DNV GL -- international accredited registrar and classification society headquartered near Oslo -- entitled Making Renewables Smarter: The benefits, risks, and future of artificial intelligence in solar and wind, outlines the advances being made in robotics, inspections, supply chain, and the way we work and showcases a variety of opportunities for the solar and wind industries to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) applications to improve their efficiency. "The use of artificial intelligence in industries continues at an impressive rate -- in manufacturing, engineering, healthcare, transportation, finance, telecommunications, services, and energy," the authors of the report explain. "Artificial intelligence's ability to use machine learning to analyse historical and new data, make predictions, control physical operations, and make decisions at increasingly higher levels is having an immense impact." The report explores ways in which AI applications like machine learning can impact the efficiency levels of areas involved in the wind and solar industries such as decision making and planning, condition monitoring, robotics, inspections, certifications and supply chain optimization, as well as the way technical work is carried out.

If you've ever read an artist statement or museum wall text hoping to develop a deeper understanding of the work, but come away more confused, you're not the only one. Istanbul-based artist Selçuk Artut has developed a tool to explore this familiar art world phenomenon. The code powers his latest artwork, Variable, in which a sculpture is accompanied by an automatically generated, wall-mounted electronic description à la art-world press release. "There are all of these art pieces where people are trying to give a lot of meaning with the use of extensive texts," rather than leave them open for interpretation, Artut tells me. And "there are plenty of examples of artists who are not coming up with clever ideas [in art] but who are really good at writing beautiful texts."

Capital and investments still hinge on financial institutions that are well known to Wall Street. In this digital age it is the adjacent industries who are adopting advanced technologies proactively. Outside the banking walls the world is becoming digitally intertwined. The fast flow of widespread information is transforming the way goods and services get transacted. Could this be the future of banking?

Germany's Max Planck Society creates Nobel Prize winners. Most recently, in 2014, physicist Stefan Hell, one of its scholars, was recognised for a breakthrough in microscope technology, allowing much smaller structures -- less than 200 nanometres -- to be seen. Commercialising this kind of highbrow abstract research, however, has been a different matter. While the alumni of California's Stanford University have filled Silicon Valley with start-ups, Germany's research institutes have not created clusters on the same scale. A new tech hub -- Cyber Valley -- in southern Germany between Stuttgart and Tübingen, is attempting to create new kinds of collaboration between academics and businesses.

While we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, we're now fully onboard with the sale frenzy that accompanies it (even if we don't like to admit it to ourselves). If you're in the market for a new piece of tech but don't fancy wading out onto the High Street, we've got you covered. As always, if you spot anything that we might have missed, drop us a note in the comments below and we'll add it to our list as soon as possible. Some will be daily deals, so move quickly. They are targeted at Brits mind you, so we're avoiding anything that forces you to pay in dollars (you can find that here), Euros or any other (probably stronger) currency.

November 15, 2017 Written by: Kareem Yusuf, Ph.D As a huge Star Wars fan, I have always wanted to have a set of supernatural powers, such as the ability to sense impending attacks; influence the thoughts of others, known as the "Jedi mind trick;" and even see the future. In essence, the Force – meaning the wisdom, expertise and ability to know exactly what will happen next and what I should do in the moment. Of course, there is only one problem with all this--our current reality. Wilson predicted, the world will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time and think critically about it to make important choices wisely. And, that is exactly what IBM Watson is doing today.