Will Westworld really be the next Game of Thrones? The trailers and posters we've seen so far seem to suggest so. While its marketing team is definitely pushing the'sci-fi western that grapples with man's incessant need to tinker with technology' angle, this is still HBO. It's got sex, violence, and weird stabby sex murder. And that's just the bits we've seen.

Directed by speculative architect Liam Young, In the Robot Skies claims to be the first narrative fiction film shot entirely by autonomous, pre-programmed drones. But the lack of human camera operators is more than just a headline grabbing gimmick. The film, which premieres in October at the London Film Festival, revolves around an age-old love story set in a near-future police state where the drones themselves play an integral role. Young and fiction author Tim Maughan imagined the story to explore the "drone as a cultural object" -- one that can be both oppressive and liberating as it eventually breeds new urban subcultures. While the film may not be the first drone-shot sci-fi flick, some of the themes are strikingly close to becoming reality.

Based in Los Angeles, this crafty R&B trio writes, performs and produces its own music, a rare instance of artistic autonomy in a world defined by behind-the-scenes direction. What's more, twin sisters Paris and Amber Strother and their friend Anita Bias handle the business side of their band as well. When King was ready to release its debut album -- this year's tender and spacey "We Are King," recorded at the group's own pace at Paris Strother's home studio -- it didn't turn to an established label or even a tech giant like Apple, as singer Frank Ocean did recently with his long-awaited "Blond." Instead, the women put the record out themselves, through their company King Creative. "We're just doing what comes naturally," said Paris Strother, who plays instruments and produces while her sister and Bias sing.

Uber is making an aggressive drive into meal delivery, backed by a wave of staff recruitment, with the U.S. tech heavyweight gearing up to enter at least 22 new countries and take on local rivals. In a measure of rising ambition beyond its taxi business, Uber will begin delivering meals in Amsterdam on Thursday just as Dutch market leader Takeaway.com And according to current job listings on Uber and other recruiting sites - for about 150 roles ranging from general managers and sales staff to bike couriers - UberEats is planning to enter at least 22 new countries across the world in the near future. That is on top of the six countries where it already operates. Uber is making an aggressive drive into meal delivery, backed by a wave of staff recruitment, with the U.S. tech heavyweight gearing up to enter at least 22 new countries and take on local rivals Download the UberEATS app and add your delivery address.

Who has not dreamed of being an artist? This dream is now within everyone's reach thanks to the Prisma application and the artificial intelligence. First released back in June in the Apple App Store, the Prisma app (developed by Russia-based company Prisma Labs) uses neural networks and AI technology to turn normal photos into instant famous painters' art styles (abstract, impressionist, Gothic and several others). It is almost like carrying Picasso in your pocket and ask him to paint for you. The art filters and photo effects create such a mind-blowing result that the app broke the Apple download records in Russia.

Standing in line for the latest iPhone at the Apple store, queueing for tickets to Wimbledon or even just waiting at the post office might just have got a lot easier. Japanese car-maker Nissan claims to have just the thing to relieve the sore legs of weary queuers. The new system of'self-driving' chairs is designed to detect when someone at the front of the queue is summoned, and automatically move everyone else one step forward in line. The chairs are equipped with autonomous technology that detects the seat ahead. When the person at the front of the queue is summoned, the empty chair at the front can sense it is empty, so moves out of pole position.

Networking among virtual machines in Microsoft Azure is going to get a whole lot faster thanks to some new hardware that Microsoft has rolled out across its fleet of data centers. The company announced Monday that it has deployed hundreds of thousands of FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays) across servers in 15 countries and five different continents. The chips have been put to use in a variety of first-party Microsoft services, and they're now starting to accelerate networking on the company's Azure cloud platform. In addition to improving networking speeds, the FPGAs (which sit on custom, Microsoft-designed boards connected to Azure servers) can also be used to improve the speed of machine-learning tasks and other key cloud functionality. Microsoft hasn't said exactly what the contents of the boards include, other than revealing that they hold an FPGA, static RAM chips and hardened digital signal processors.

Elpasolite is a glassy, transparent, shiny and soft mineral with a cubic crystal structure. First discovered in El Paso County (Colorado, USA), it can also be found in the Rocky Mountains, Virginia and the Apennines (Italy). In experimental databases, elpasolite is one of the most frequently found quaternary crystals (crystals made up of four chemical elements). Depending on its composition, it can be a metallic conductor, a semi-conductor or an insulator, and may also emit light when exposed to radiation. These characteristics make elpasolite an interesting candidate for use in scintillators (certain aspects of which can already be demonstrated) and other applications. Its chemical complexity means that, mathematically speaking, it is practically impossible to use quantum mechanics to predict every theoretically viable combination of the four elements in the structure of elpasolite.

At a political rally in Moscow, police are reported to have attempted to handcuff and detain an activist called Promobot. The event at which the futuristic fracas occurred was in support of Valery Kalachev, a candidate for Russia's parliament. Kalachev was using the automaton to record the opinions and reactions of the crowd for future processing. Apparently that didn't sit well with Russian police officers, who "asked to remove the robot … and even tried to handcuff him," according to the robot's makers, who added that "the robot did not put up any resistance." There is, of course, a whiff of publicity stunt about the whole thing--buoyed by the fact that Promobot already has a track record for getting into scrapes.

Lukas Kalemba was walking home with some friends after a night of partying and drinking in Dortmund, Germany, in 2003. While crossing a bridge along the way, he stopped to rest but lost his balance and fell over. In an attempt to break his fall, he instinctively reached out and grabbed a wire that stretched across. It kept him from falling 20 feet to the ground immediately but the wire sent a high-voltage current through the left side of his body, causing irreparable damage to his leg. Kalemba became an above-the-knee amputee when he was 19 years old.