A quarter of voice technology users say they've had a sexual fantasy about their voice assistant, a new study has revealed. Even more users, 37 per cent, say that they love their voice assistant so much that they wish it were a real person. The findings could have an impact on how brands such as Google and Amazon design their voice technologies for human interaction. Pictured is Theodore Twombly, played by Joaquin Phoenix in the movie Her. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has recently cited two studies that investigate these allegations, which have discovered that'both women and men find the female voice welcoming and warm,' reports Joanna Stern with WSJ.

Sparse coding with an overcomplete basis set: a strategy employed by V1? Vision Res.

Researchers have developed a pair of earbuds fitted with an electrical field sensing device that is capable of detecting your facial expressions and transforming them into smartphone commands. The team foresees the technology being used by those with impaired movements and as a way to encourage people to stop using their phone while driving. The team decided to use the ear, as'hiding a sensing device in a subtle ear plug is less obtrusive than other approaches demonstrated in literature'. The system consist of an ear plug plus a reference electrode (a clothes peg that has to be attached to the ear lobe) and four sensing shields that are connected to an Arduino which runs on a 9V battery supply and transmits data via Bluetooth. When someone smiles, winks an eye or moves their head, muscles in the ears also move, which deforms the earbud and creates significant change in the electric field'that can be mapped to corresponding face movements'.

Uncharted 4 has won the best game at this year's Bafta Games Awards. Developers from its studio, Naughty Dog, said it was "unexpected" that the action adventure title had won, having missed out on the other seven categories it had been nominated for. Chaotic restaurant kitchen game Overcooked took the prize for best British game and family title. The puzzle-platformer Inside had four wins, the most of any game at the London ceremony. It took original property, artistic achievement, game design and narrative.

Back in October, Deschutes Brewery Inc.'s Brian Faivre was fermenting a batch of Obsidian Stout in a massive tank. Something was amiss; the beer wasn't fermenting at the usual temperature. Luckily, a software system triggered a warning and he fixed the problem. "We would have had to dump an entire batch," the brewmaster said. When beer is your bottom line, that's a calamity.

Some giant viruses encode a genome larger than that of some bacteria, but their evolutionary history is a mystery. Examining the genomes within a sample from a wastewater treatment plant in Austria, Schulz et al. assembled a previously undiscovered giant virus genome, which they used to mine genetic databases for related viruses. The authors thus identified a group of giant viruses with more genes encoding components of the protein translation machinery, including aminoacyl transfer RNA synthetases, than in other giant viruses. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that the genes were acquired in an evolutionarily recent time frame, likely from, and as an adaptation to, their hosts.

EE is the best mobile operator for 4G coverage in 14 of the most populated areas in the UK, says a new report. The network dominated rival firms O2, Vodafone and Three, according to statistics from RootMetrics. It assessed coverage in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds and Bradford, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield. EE, which last year announced plans to move its heavily criticised customer services to the UK, delivered at least 90% coverage in 11 of the 14 areas, while Three failed to hit that figure in any of the cities included in the report. O2 and Vodafone, meanwhile, only hit the 90% mark in three areas.

Apple is being sued by Australia, after its phones started breaking with no warning. A new case from the country's consumer watchdog accuses the company of "bricking", or remotely disabling, phones with a software update. That follows the controversy over what was dubbed "Error 53" – named after the message that was displayed after the update arrived and wouldn't allow people to use their phone. Specifically, the problem arose when people had their screens fixed by a non-Apple repairer. That triggered what Apple said was a security measure, but others complained was an unfair change, which meant that the phones wouldn't turn back on and couldn't be fixed again by Apple. 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 aviation industry has discovered Silicon Valley, and it's now in full migration mode. Europe's Airbus and Brazil's Embraer have touched down in the Bay Area. Lufthansa launched direct service between San Jose and Frankfurt last year, and is rumored to be considering setting up its own "innovation outpost" nearby. Silicon Valley's deep talent pool and seemingly endless ability to generate smart, large-scale, technology-based ideas across industries could help hyper-competitive aviation entities quickly upgrade their offerings and improve their operations. "It's no longer good enough to wait for change to come to your industry; you need to be out there where it's happening," said Brad Power, an innovation consultant with FCB Partners.

A lively discussion is currently under way in the business world regarding possible applications of intelligent IT systems and autonomous machines and equipment. Rapid technical development in these areas has spurred the imagination of users. The application areas are extremely diverse, and include production robots in industry, drones and self-driving delivery robots in logistics and warehousing, healthcare robots and driverless vehicles. What sounds like science fiction has already become reality in some cases, with intelligent robots being particularly common in production and logistics. From a legal viewpoint, there are still a host of unanswered questions around robotics and the artificial intelligence (AI) incorporated into robots. The European Parliament accordingly passed a resolution with recommendations to the European Commission on civil law rules on robotics (2015/2103(INL)) on 16 February 2017; the resolution was adopted with 396 votes in favour, 123 against and 85 abstentions.