When you're swiping through Tinder it's pretty easy to dismiss someone based on their first photo. Maybe it's poorly compressed, from the delivery room or the church steps on a person's wedding day. Those might be red flags that push people to instantaneously dismiss a potential match before looking deeper at a person's profile. To help your right-swiping sojourn, though, Tinder is using data to make sure someone's best picture is the first you'll see. The new feature is called "Smart Photos."

Researchers from Reconfigurable Robotics Lab at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne have created a soft and flexible robot. Made of elastomers--synthetic polymers with elastic properties--like silicon and rubber, the soft robots are powered by muscle-like actuators. Since the soft robots are cheap to produce and can be manufactured on a large scale, they can be applied on many levels. In Nature's journal Scientific Reports, the scientists reveal potential applications of the soft robots, which range from biomimetic systems and home care to handling fragile objects and patient rehabilitation. "Our robot designs focus largely on safety," said Jamie Paik, the director of the RRL, in a statement.

Foldability is all the hype in the drone world these days, as is the case with the GoPro Karma and the DJI Mavic. But before these two were announced, we already heard about Zero Zero Robotics' Hover Camera 4K drone that is truly foldable and also fully enclosed -- in the sense that you can grab hold it any way you want without getting cut by the propellers, plus you're less likely to cause havoc in a room. Today, we bring you the good news that this nifty little machine -- under the new name "Passport" -- is finally launching for 549. For those who aren't already familiar, the Passport is an ultra-lightweight and ultra-compact quadcopter powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon Flight platform. It comes with a 13-megapixel still camera that can shoot 4K video, and there's a foldable carbon-fiber enclosure for the propellers -- the drone is about the size of a VHS cassette tape when folded, if you know what that is.

ComplyAdvantage, a new London-based startup, raked in 8.2 million in a Series A funding led by Balderton Capital. This money shall be pumped into growth across Europe and the U.S. Very quick to act, they're even opening a New York office this week! This startup claims to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to help firms manage compliance obligations at reasonable prices. Not only are they going to take on your headaches for you, they're also not going to extort you for it. ComplyAdvantage was founded by Charles Delingpole, who has also previously founded Market Invoice.

New research has shown that grocery retailers are struggling to optimise stock replenishment processes, with almost half saying that their decisions are still based on'gut feeling'. Retail applications provider Blue Yonder surveyed 750 grocery managers and directors in the US, UK, Germany and France. It found that, in spite of a rise in accurate algorithms for automated replenishment and demand planning, 46% of surveyed directors in the UK say that replenishment is still an entirely manual process and the same amount saying that it was fully automated. A further 30% believed that instinct-based decision making was slowing them down. Of the four countries involved in Blue Yonder's survey, Germany had the highest proportion of respondents using manual or partially automated systems, with just one-third of managers who had fully automated their stock replenishment processes.

We make a major error when we think of AI as a technology, or perhaps as just another technology. This error can turn out to be a costly mistake. Specifically, using the term "technology" to describe artificial intelligence can influence us to ignore the perils of AI, to accept it as we have accepted other technologies, and to incorrectly assume that in the past 3 centuries we have acquired enough experience to deal with technological revolutions. AI is different and hence it should be approached completely differently. Most importantly it should be approached humbly – and with an understanding that this is not something we have dealt before.

Driverless car trials have finally reached the UK, in the form of two-seater "pods" zipping down pedestrianised streets in Milton Keynes. The purple and white vehicles, designed by automotive firm RDM, look like a cross between a golf cart and a bubble. The doors open vertically, but from the inside it just looks like a regular automatic car hooked up to an iPad. It's hard to tell that the car has been kitted out with the latest driverless control systems by Oxbotica, a spinout company from the Oxford Mobile Robotics Group. Tom Wilcox, a senior software engineer involved in the project, tells me he's there to grab the steering wheel if something goes wrong.

An assemblage of technological breakthroughs are rapidly morphing to create massive changes in how businesses operate. Artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) are just three of eight crucial "megatrends" that strategy consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says is going to significantly distort business. Those new forces should clearly be planned for. And although the consulting firm's advice is aimed at generalized CEOs, it's IT and technical teams that will have to lay the groundwork. Robots, augmented reality (AR), 3D printing, drones and virtual reality (VR) are also among PwC's pick of "essential eight technologies" that the firm says in its report (PDF) (released during the summer) need to be considered by company chiefs to move their operations forward.

Football is also one of the most popular sports to gamble on with a myriad of bet types to choose from. The in-play market is particularly busy for bettors with prices constantly updating during the ebb and flow of the game. Because of its popularity, football attracts a lot of academic interest. Here is a citation list for academic papers concerned with football. NOTE - If any links to papers are broken then just Google the paper's title to find an alternate.

Google DeepMind's system is a move closer to the goal of creating a neural network that can navigate something as complex as the London Underground without any human-written programming. Researchers at Google-owned DeepMind in the UK have developed AI that can store knowledge, such as a map, and use it to navigate a system as complicated as London's Underground. Sure, you can already get directions from Google Maps to navigate transport networks, but DeepMind's new system inches it towards the goal of building a neural network that can navigate without any human-written programming, instead using knowledge to work out a route. Its latest efforts combine deep-learning algorithms with a machine equivalent of a human's working memory. We read the Obama Administration's report on artificial intelligence in full.