A crash resistant drone has been developed by researchers who say they were inspired by the properties of insect wings. The external frame of the drone is flexible and bends without breaking, but it locks around an internal case with magnets - making it rigid during flight. Experiments showed that the frame of the drone withstood roughly 50 collisions with no permanent damage. The drone, designed by researchers at the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) and the Floreano Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), is a soft quadcopter that doesn't break during collisions. Its design was modeled after the dual stiffness properties of insects wings.

Intel is slated to launch self-driving test vehicles in Europe later this year as part of its new venture after acquiring Israeli tech company Mobileye. The cars the chipmaker will use are from BMW, another partner in this big project. On Monday, Intel revealed that it has agreed to purchase Mobileye -- a company known for its autonomous driving, anti-collision and other driving solutions -- for $15.3 billion. The announcement is seen as a desperate move by the renowned chipmaker to venture into the autonomous-driving sector after missing its chance to enter the mobile phones industry, as per Reuters. The combination of Intel and Mobileye is deemed fitting for both companies have what it takes to create top-of-the-line technologies for driverless vehicles.

The NHS is testing a new artificially intelligent chatbot app that it hopes will offer an alternative to the non-emergency 111 helpline. The bot will allow users to enter their symptoms and get advice immediately right on their smartphones. The idea is to offer the health advice service to ease the number of calls to 111, which may otherwise be resolved with a few simple answers from the app. The 111 helpline has been subject to criticism for unanswered calls, failing to identify serious conditions and inappropriate advice. This service is mostly manned by non medical professionals who often answer questions using a script anyway.

Nine of top 20 UK fintech deals were completed post-referendum, with investment totalling $368 million, according to a new report by Startupbootcamp's London fintech programme in conjunction with PwC. As a testament to the strength of the UK fintech market, the report also revealed that today's British fintech start-up works on a robust model that puts customers first through an investment into technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). Fintech start-ups are increasingly focusing on building smarter, faster machines as they seek to gain a better understanding of artificial intelligence and its potential to solve customer problems. This according to data compiled from hundred of start-ups and financial services companies, which also reveals that almost one in seven applications to the Startupbootcamp incubator programme in 2016 looked to build new prototypes, many of which were focused on AI and machine learning. Over the past few years, the focus on AI and machine learning has been driven by a need to further understand and develop the technology with no clear concept of how to implement it in daily life, according to the report.

Households have spent £180m over the past three years on spare power capacity that was never used, according to a report that comes as MPs prepare to debate what can be done about rising energy bills. Power stations have been put on standby over the winter since 2014 as part of the National Grid's supplemental balancing reserve but the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has found that the scheme, which closed in February, was never used. The thinktank said a new scheme to be introduced this winter would see the annual cost jump to £387m. Jonathan Marshall, energy analyst at the ECIU, said: "The clear message from this report is that paying to boost spare capacity in Britain's electricity system can be very expensive and potentially unnecessary." He calculated that increasing the capacity margin, the percentage difference between electricity supply and demand, would be extremely costly. The margin was 6.6% last winter, prompting a Lords committee last month to call for it to be boosted to 10%.

Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel, Harald Krueger, CEO of German car maker BMW and Amnon Shashua, co-founder, chairman and CTO Mobileye NV, pose after a press conference in Munich on July 1, 2016. As the automotive industry races to commercialize automated driving by the turn of the decade, the number of real power players in the space is rapidly consolidating. The latest move is Intel's acquisition of Israeli machine vision leader Mobileye for $15.3 billion. If completed, the deal may finally put Intel in a strong position in a new market after it has struggled in recent years to break into new new territory beyond its deteriorating stronghold in PC chips. Founded 1999, Mobileye is the undisputed global market leader for the image processing systems that are increasingly becoming standard equipment on new vehicles and will be essential to making self-driving vehicles work.

Over the last few months it has become trendy to jump on the neo-Luddite bandwagon and bemoan how machines are taking our jobs, and as automation gathers pace, they will take our jobs in never before seen numbers. It's led to a renewed emphasis on policies such as the Universal Basic Income. I'm inclined to think that much of this is simply bandwagon jumping, and have argued in the past that the notion that the current revolution is somehow different to all of those in the past is not born out by the evidence, whilst at the same time admitting that governments are largely failing to do the kind of things required to support citizens in their attempts to adapt. A recent paper provides a further element of evidence to add to the discussion. It looks at the role technology plays in economic recoveries, both in terms of economic growth and the number of jobs. The paper reveals that whilst economic recoveries in previous decades would usually involve average increases in employment of around 5% per year, this has slowed significantly since the 90s.

Android users have long been able to personalise their phone's home screen by creating widgets and downloading launchers and icon packs. However, many users are unaware of this, and instead rely on their own pictures and their phone's pre-loaded wallpapers to keep their handset's look fresh. That's why Google has created the'myAndroid Taste Test', a short quiz designed to help users discover the perfect home screen design and layout for them. 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. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

Google just killed the Captcha, perhaps the most obstructive thing on the entire internet. For years, Captcha served as the primary way of telling humans and robots apart on the internet. It made sure that the person looking to access a website was actually a human being – ensuring that robots couldn't be used to send spam or flood a website with requests, for instance. But over time, robots have gradually become too clever for the often simple tests – which early on required people to transcribe hard-to-read text. With that, the technologies have become more complex, too.

Technology is most successful when it impacts society in a positive way, and whilst Artificial Intelligence is still a sensitive subject for some, another benevolent application for AI has been found in fighting crime. AI powered platforms are brilliant at recognising patterns, which also means that they can pick out anomalies. That's why AI is such a valuable tool for detecting fraud, for instance. It can flag up suspicious behaviours amongst datasets that are so huge, human administrators wouldn't know where to start. The latest use of the technology to combat crime isn't on the streets, or even in the courts – it's a prison that is pioneering this new high-tech approach to security.