Nintendo will finally unveil its online service for the Switch next year, it has confirmed. The full launch will happen in 2018. When it does, Switch players will pay $20 per year to get access to a range of new and existing features. Until the service rolls out, Switch owners will be able to play online for free. But they also won't get access to the features that will come at the full launch, which includes proper matchmaking and a phone app.

In the autumn of 1995 I joined the video game magazine Edge as a staff writer. It was my first job in journalism and came at the start of Future Publishing's glory years, its range of specialist gaming mags – Games Master, SuperPlay and the Official PlayStation Magazine – reaching their absolute pomp. We were based in Bath, in a collection of buildings throughout the picturesque city centre, and Edge was on the first floor of a converted pub, down a backstreet behind Queens Square. The editor was Jason Brookes, a Japanese-gaming obsessive and enthusiastic clubber, whose taste in dance music (Paul Oakenfold, William Orbit, BT) dominated the Edge hi-fi. We played games, we listened to music, we went clubbing, we played more games.

Google has confirmed it is adding an ad blocker to Chrome in early 2018. The controversial plans have been rumoured for weeks, and the company has now shared concrete details about them. Google makes the vast majority of its revenue from advertising, and there has been concern that the company will take great care to protect its own interests. 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.

Supermarket queues could be a thing of the past with a'pocket checkout' system that allows shoppers to scan items using their phone camera. Barclaycard's new system of in-store paying allows people to pay for goods while wandering around the store - meaning no need to go via checkout. The company is already testing the technology at the canteen at its Canary Wharf headquarters with another retailer to offer the technology later in the year. Barclaycard's new'Grab and Go' technology (pictured) allows shoppers to scan all their items using their phone before walking out the shop without having to queue at checkout Instead of going to the checkout, shoppers could scan their items using their phone and then walk straight out the shop. The technology could either operate through the Barclays app or be integrated into the retailer's app.

Computer scientists at the University of Cambridge have created a way to minimise sheep's suffering using artificial intelligence (AI). The researchers built machine learning algorithms based on the Sheep Pain Facial Expression Scale (SPFES)-- a system that gauges the mammal's pain depending on its facial movements. The algorithm devised at Cambridge is an ovine version of earlier projects to assess human emotions with computer vision. "There's been much more study over the years with people," the study's lead researcher Peter Robinson said. "But a lot of the earlier work on the faces of animals was actually done by Darwin, who argued that all humans and many animals show emotion through remarkably similar behaviours, so we thought there would likely be crossover between animals and our work in human faces."

"People want to feel heard and seen – and today's customer service very frequently does the exact opposite of that" – Dr. Justine Cassell, Carnegie Mellon University LivePerson and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) recently hosted over 100 customer care executives from globally leading brands for the Bots and AI conference in Pittsburgh. I had the great opportunity to attend as part of the IBM team. The idea at the heart of the Bots and AI conference is that bots and human agents can help customer service be more successful. Chatbots can build rapport with people and answer simple queries effectively. When a more complex interaction is necessary, chatbots can hand off to a live agent, and the agent can pass back to a chatbot to complete a transaction.

Facebook has completely overhauled albums. The social network has essentially transformed them into digital scrapbooks where you can dump lots of different types of content. Albums used to be an extremely popular feature, and Facebook is hoping to revive them. 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.

The vast majority of bank customers in Europe would not let a computer program make and act upon financial decisions on their behalf, a survey showed on Wednesday, in a sign of caution over the rising so-called robo-advice industry. Robots ranked below financial advisers, friends or even using the internet as a means of making investment decisions, according to the fifth annual International Survey Mobile Banking conducted by Dutch bank ING Groep (ing). The survey of 15,000 people across 15 countries said that 91% of respondents would not let robo-advisers act unilaterally. A quarter of those surveyed would be willing to use the machines' advice so long as the human customer got final approval. The fact that people are reluctant to cede control over a decision - even when the outcome from outsourcing the choice could be more beneficial - explains why so few would hand money choices to a robo-adviser, ING said in its report.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the cutting edge in technology. It is fast getting mainstream and coming out of the confines of science fiction. The onset of AI-based technology in India is evident in the sectors of e-commerce and research, where entities that are already using data analytics, are now looking to explore AI. I got great perspectives on the potential of AI at Intel's AI Day at Bangalore recently. I also got to know the various parts that make up AI and why it is so complex.

The best science fiction movies use costumes, models and physical props to sell their vision of the future. Alien, for instance, would be nothing without the compression suits worn by its ill-fated crew outside the Nostromo. From June 3rd, the Barbican Centre in London will be celebrating these movies and the staggering work that went into them through a new exhibition called'Into the Unknown.' Walk down its dark, curving corridor and you'll find original spacesuits from Alien, Moon, Sunshine and Star Trek, as well as original Darth Vader and Stormtrooper helmets from Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back. Delve deeper and you'll see the black, monolithic TARS robot from Interstellar, the humanoid Sonny from I, Robot and the smiling Twiki from the 1970s TV show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. They're flanked by manuscripts, concept art and other intriguing props -- one cabinet hides a metal chair designed by H. R. Giger for Alejandro Jodorowsky's unreleased film adaption of Dune.