Google is teaching machines to play Atari games like Space Invaders, Video Pinball, and Breakout. At DeepMind, a Google subsidiary based in Cambridge, England, researchers have built artificial intelligence software that's so adept at these classic games, it can sometimes beat a human player--and a professional, at that. This may seem like a frivolous, if intriguing, pursuit. If a machine can learn to navigate the digital world of a video game, Google says, it eventually could learn to navigate the real world, too. Today, this AI can play Space Invaders.

He's a lightning-fast learner, he speaks eight languages and he's considered an expert in multiple fields. He's got an exemplary work ethic, is a speed reader and finds insights no one else can. On a personal note, he's a mean chef and even offers good dating advice. Named after IBM's first CEO, Watson was born back in 2007 as part of an effort by IBM Research to develop a question-answering system that could compete on the American quiz show "Jeopardy." Since trouncing its human opponents on the show in 2011, it has expanded considerably.

Bionic arms, robotic legs, powered exoskeletons, brain-controlled computer interfaces and supercharged wheelchairs - all took centre stage to compete at this weekend's Cybathlon. Dubbed as the world's first "bionic Olympics", you might assume this to be a mini-Paralympics with some cutting-edge technology added to the mix. But the focus of the event was less about athletics - and you could argue, less about competition - and more about what the future could hold for those with disabilities. The competition was held near Zurich and saw a 4,600-strong crowd cheer on the innovation and hard work of 66 teams of technologists, developers and "pilots" - as the competitors were called - had put in. It was a truly awe-inspiring display of assistive technologies that aim to overcome day-to-day practical challenges.

Speaking to attendees at a deep learning conference in London last month, there was one particularly noteworthy recurring theme: humility, or at least, the need for it. While companies like Google are confidently pronouncing that we live in an "AI-first age," with machine learning breaking new ground in areas like speech and image recognition, those at the front lines of AI research are keen to point out that there's still a lot of work to be done. Just because we have digital assistants that sound like the talking computers in movies doesn't mean we're much closer to creating true artificial intelligence. Problems include the need for vast amounts of data to power deep learning systems; our inability to create AI that is good at more than one task; and the lack of insight we have into how these systems work in the first place. Machine learning in 2016 is creating brilliant tools, but they can be hard to explain, costly to train, and often mysterious even to their creators.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The British pound endured one of its biggest falls ever on Friday with some in the markets blaming trading robots or a fat-fingered typo for sending the currency down a precipitous 6 per cent in just a couple of minutes. For one of the world's major currencies, which is held as a reserve by countries around the world, that's a huge move, matched only by the pound's fall in the wake of dramatic events like Britain's June 23 vote to leave the European Union. Early Friday during Asian hours, the pound tumbled from 1.2600 to as low as 1.1789 in the space of two minutes, according to financial data provider FactSet. It recovered since that cliff-like fall to trade at 1.24 later Friday. Still, that's a level the currency hasn't seen since 1985 and way down on where it started the week, just below 1.30.

Jay Baer, a digital marketing consultant in Bloomington, Ind., spends half his time traveling on business. That means he also has to spend hours each week coordinating that travel. Help has arrived with the Pana app, which employs artificial intelligence to aid customers. Virtual travel assistant services -- some from established companies like Facebook, IBM and Expedia, and others from new entrants like Pana and HelloGbye -- are now popping up worldwide, just as major hotel chains like Starwood and Hilton are incorporating robots into their everyday operations. Many of the virtual assistant services use artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science that simulates intelligent human behavior.

The film studio 20th Century Fox has called in IBM Watson, the supercomputer, to create the trailer for its upcoming AI horror/thriller, Morgan. IBM Watson has done many things; beat human contestants in quiz shows, created bespoke recipes and described the contents of photos. Now it has become the first-ever AI to produce a film trailer for the new sci-fi film. IBM researchers fed Watson more than 100 horror film trailers cut into separate moments and scenes. It performed a series of visual, sound and composition analyses on each scene to get an idea of how to create the dynamics of a trailer.

While Tesla is best known for its autonomous cars, it appears the company may have new products up its sleeve. In a tweet last night, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said that a new product would be unveiled next week. Little is known about what the product could be, but Musk said that it would be'unexpected.' In a tweet last night, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said that a new product would be unveiled next week. Little is known about what the product could be, but Mr Musk said that it would be'unexpected' Many people on Twitter have speculated at what the new product could be.

Glasses-wearers are smarter than those with perfect vision, according to researchers at Mainz University in Germany. According to The Times, scientists in the department of ophthalmology at the German university found that short-sighted people were more likely to be brighter and better educated than people who don't need glasses. Researchers were investigating the increase in myopia across Europe, which is as high as 50 per cent in groups of professionals over the age of 40. The study looked at 3,452 people, giving them eye examinations and intelligence tests and recorded their age and level of investigation. The research paper said: 'A higher cognitive ability was identified in myopes compared with non-myopes.'

"Alexa, how long will it take me to get to Chicago from here?" This question is not profoundly complex. In many ways, it's more like a search query, and it shouldn't have anything to do with A.I. Yet there are several important data points, and the Alexa assistant that runs on my Amazon Echo speaker doesn't know what to do. When I ask this question, the bot tells me to set up my traffic route for a daily commute. On the new Google Allo messaging app using the Google Assistant bot, things are a little different.