With a few exceptions, quadrotors are the go-to aerial robot when you need something small, fast, and maneuverable. This is because quadrotors are relatively cheap and easy to fly, and not because they're the best aerial platform. In fact, you may have noticed that there aren't a lot of rotary fliers in the animal kingdom--this is because (among other reasons) flapping wings offer high efficiency and incredible maneuverability as long as you're able to manufacture and control them. Those last two things are what make wings tricky for robots, which is why we don't see nearly as many useful robot birds as we do useful quadrotors. Alireza Ramezani, Soon-Jo Chung, and Seth Hutchinson from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Caltech have decided that making robot birds is just not tricky enough, so they're working on something even better and even more complex: a robotic bat.

It swoops, flaps and dives just like the animals it was designed to mimic. Inspired by the flexibility and agility of bats and their wings, a team of engineers has come up with an autonomous flying robot with the same skills – one that could ultimately be used to survey building sites from the air. Aerial robots have previously taken inspiration from insects and birds, but bats are a tougher challenge for roboticists because of their complicated skeletons and irregular flight patterns. "Bats have a very complex body morphology compared to birds or insects. Their wings are very articulated, with many joints," says team member Alireza Ramezani at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Artificial intelligence (AI) research has a long history, but even before computers existed Hollywood has been implanting a fear of intelligent machines into the public psyche, with more than sixty films to date depicting stereotypical threats to humankind. But only in the last few years has AI featured as a regular news story, invariably illustrated by images of suit-wearing robots seated around a board table. As intelligent machines have become mainstream, all kinds of media outlets serve up stories - some of them post-truth - about how robots will replace humans across a wide range of sectors: thanks to their superior speed and intelligence many current jobs will become obsolete. It will happen fast - within the next generation, according to those seeking to grab our attention, leaving humans to find alternative employment, if they can. As soon as 2021, robots will eliminate 6% of all US jobs, according to market research company Forrester while the World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts a loss of 7 million jobs within four years.

Cosmologist Stephen Hawking and Tesla CEO Elon Musk endorsed a set of principles this week that have been established to ensure that self-thinking machines remain safe and act in humanity's best interests. Machines are getting more intelligent every year and researchers believe they could possess human levels of intelligence in the coming decades. Once they reach this point they could then start to improve themselves and create other, even more powerful AIs, known as superintelligences, according to Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom and several others in the field. In 2014, Musk, who has his own $1 billion AI research company, warned that AI has the potential to be "more dangerous than nukes" while Hawking said in December 2014 that AI could end humanity. But there are two sides to the coin.

Marking a major step forward for artificial intelligence (AI), Libratus, an AI developed by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), has resoundingly beaten four of the best heads-up no-limit Texas hold'em poker players in the world in a marathon, 20-day competition. After 20 days and a collective 120,000 hands played, Libratus closed out the competition Monday leading the pros by a collective $1,766,250 in chips. "I'm just impressed with the quality of poker Libratus plays," pro player Jason Les, a specialist in heads-up no-limit Texas hold'em like the other three players, said at a press conference yesterday morning. "They made algorithms that play this game better than us. We make a living trying to find vulnerabilities in strategies. That's what we do every day when we play heads-up no-limit. We tried everything we could and it was just too strong."

Facebook is testing a new feature that encourages users to befriend people they don't actually know. 'Discover People' invites you to "introduce yourself" first by updating various sections of your profile, including your bio and featured photos. Beneath this lies a list of upcoming events you're either interested in, registered to attend or invited to. 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 ...

Red Bull has launched its own virtual reality platform, and it requires a strong stomach. With a focus on extreme sports, it attempts to replicate some of the most exhilarating outdoor experiences for armchair fans, including cliff diving, skiing, helicopter aerobatics and urban exploration. 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 ...

Or you have the automated shuttle bus developed by French start-up Navya that was recently demoed at Heathrow airport's Compass Centre. The vehicles, which were first launched in France in 2015, have already been deployed around the world, and have transported over 100,000 people in that time. The vehicle, which can carry up to 15 people, can travel at up to 30mph, but because it is often deployed on corporate or university campuses, it seldom surpasses 15mph. It's designed for journeys that are too short for cars, but too long for walking.

People with a rare condition called complete locked-in syndrome may finally have a link to the outside world. By reading the brain activity of completely paralyzed people in a new way, researchers could tell whether the test subjects were thinking'yes' or'no' in response to a question. The results were published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Biology. Four people with complete locked-in syndrome used the new technology to report that they were happy. The findings indicate that these people actually can communicate, with help from the right technology.

A single conversation can be interpreted in very different ways. For people with social anxiety or conditions like autism, this can make social situations extremely stressful. But a new device that can detect if a conversation is happy or sad based on speech patterns could make life easier for people who struggle in these situations. The Samsung Simband predicts if a conversation is happy or sad based on a person's speech patterns. Long pauses and monotonous vocal tones were associated with sadder stories.