Back pain is one of the leading causes of work absenteeism in the UK, with 8.8 million days lost to work-related muscoskeletal disorders per year. On average, each case causes 16 days of absenteeism, and chronic conditions can cause some absences to become permanent. But working in a bent forward, back straining posture is unavoidable in a great many professions, like in hospital, agricultural and warehouses environments to name but a few. This regular exposure to demanding postures increases the risk of debilitating pain, which can severely reduce productivity and moral in the workforce. The Laevo Exoskeleton aims to alleviate this problem.

Robotics undoubtedly has the potential to improve lives in the developing world. However, with limited budgets and expertise on the ground, putting this technology in place is no small task. Step forwards WeRobotics, a new Swiss/American NGO dedicated to meeting this goal through the creation of in-country'flying labs'. Co-founder Adam Klaptocz explains all. Let's start with this: what is WeRobotics?

Telecommunications firm Verizon has acquired Skyward, a drone operations management company. Skyward develops software for drone operators to manage flight tracking and logging, maintenance scheduling, and contract management. The drone startup will join Verizon's Internet of Things portfolio. Kenya's government has implemented regulations for commercial drone use. The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority will begin allowing businesses to import and use drones for a range of operations.

Ocado, the world's largest online-only supermarket, has been evaluating the feasibility of robotic picking and packing of shopping orders in its highly-automated warehouses through the SoMa project, a Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation funded by the European Union. One of the main challenges of robotic manipulation has been the handling of easily damageable and unpredictably shaped objects such as fruit and vegetable groceries. These products have unique shapes and should be handled in a way that does not cause damage or bruising. To avoid damaging sensitive items, the project uses a compliant gripper (i.e. one that possesses spring-like properties) in conjunction with an industrial robot arm. The variation in shape of the target objects imposes another set of constraints on the design of a suitable gripper.

It's considered one of the first "robotic" devices in history. For centuries, inventors will refine the design. The first robot was a steam-powered "pigeon," created around 400 to 350 BCE by the ancient Greek mathematician Archytas, known as the father of engineering. He was using the robot to study birds in flight. The first android in the Western World, a completely mechanical figure which simulated a living human or animal, operating with apparently responsive action, is believed to have been constructed in 1525 by Hans Bullmann (?-1535) of Nuremberg, Germany. The height of the Lute Player automaton (see the lower image) is 44 cm.

Who is leading in AI research among big players like IBM, Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft? Firstly, my response contains some bias, because I work at Google Brain and I really like it there. My opinions are my own, and I do not speak for the rest of my colleagues or Alphabet as a whole. I rank "leaders in AI research" among tech companies as follows: I would say Deepmind is probably #1 right now, in terms of AI research. Their publications are highly respected within the research community, and span a myriad of topics such as Deep Reinforcement Learning, Bayesian Neural Nets, Robotics, transfer learning, and others.

Get used to hearing a lot more about artificial intelligence. Even if you discount the utopian and dystopian hyperbole, the 21st century will broadly be defined not just by advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, computing and cognitive neuroscience, but how we manage them. For some, the question of whether or not the human race will live to see a 22nd century turns upon this latter consideration. Last month, in a 17-2 vote, the parliament's legal affairs committee voted to begin drafting a set of regulations to govern the development and use of artificial intelligence and robotics While forecasting the imminence of an AI-centric future remains a matter of intense debate, we will need to come to terms with it. For now, there are many more questions than answers.

Anna Rowe had a whirlwind romance with Antony Ray after meeting him through the dating app Tinder. But their 14-month relationship came crashing down when she discovered his profile was a fake. In fact, he was a married dad who had initially used photos of a Bollywood actor on his profile and had lured in other women too. "He used me like a hotel with benefits under the disguise of a romantic, loving relationship that he knew I craved," says Anna. The practice of using a fake profile to start an online romance is known as "catfishing".

A passenger uses his biometric passport at an automated ePassport gate equiped with a facial recognition system at the British border of the Eurostar at the gare du Nord in Paris on February 17, 2017. The 227,000 jobs added to the payroll in January marked the 76th straight month of expansion. The headline number is impressive. But if you dig a little deeper, you'll find these jobs "aren't what they used to be." Since 2000, the creation of full-time positions has slowed significantly.

If there was any doubt that IBM is committed to developing the internet of things, its opening of a new 15,000sqm headquarters in Munich surely clears it. In the pipeline for almost two years, the German HQ – IBM's first ever outside of the US – didn't come cheap, and the brand wants you to know it. "The biggest investment we've made in years" or even "decades" were phrases banded around the opening press conference, as was the $200m price tag. Inside offers up more than 25 floors of collaborative space for both IBM workers and its partners. But towering above the Munich skyline, the building also acts as a warning to the global tech industry that the IT behemoth is readying to own the Internet of Things space in the same way it has allowed Watson to near-dominate the AI conversation.