Audi's autonomous cars are becoming quite the world travelers: Recall the much-ballyhooed first robotic drive from San Francisco to New York City, about a year ago. Impressive stuff, though honestly, humans can hold their own at pulling into a rest stop. I'm about to take on Robby, the autonomous RS7 sport sedan that's designed to rock a racetrack at speeds that would blister Google's cartoonish bubble car. If a human driver can't keep up, it occurs to me, then our obsolescence draws that much closer. Robby is looking cool and confident in the pits at Parcmotor Castelloli, near Barcelona.

Venture capitalists pride themselves on their ability to pick winning ideas and winning people. But could artificial intelligence do a better job? Founders Factory, a U.K. startup accelerator, has developed an AI platform that identifies high-potential entrepreneurs. The hope is to avoid the unconscious bias that normally privileges some demographic groups and backgrounds, and prevents others from getting ahead. "I was interested in getting around the bias of selection, that if you've gone to a good school or university, you probably have a good network and a good chance of doing fairly well," says Tom Bowles, who created the software.

For those of us worried that robots are coming for our jobs, economist Dr. Erik Brynjolfsson offers words of comfort: Bots actually may create new employment opportunities. Brynjolfsson discussed how new technologies may influence future jobs in an interview (above) with Andrew McAfee, co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, during the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year. McAfee and Brynjolfsson are co-authors of The Second Machine Age. "It's true that robots are taking away some jobs, but at the same time they're creating lots of new jobs," said Brynjolfsson, director of the Initiative. "The thing that's different is whether or not the new job creation is keeping in balance with the old job creation, and there's no economic law that says that's automatically going to happen."

The speed with which humans are improving A.I. is increasing, but once the singularity occurs, A.I. will create better A.I. at an exponential rate. Think new iterations of software in a matter of seconds, not months. Imagine the capabilities of an artificial intelligence whose computational capability exceeds that of all humans combined -- and a few seconds later of all humans who have ever lived. It could cure cancer in nanoseconds. Could, in fact, cure cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease and ebola in a fraction of a second.

The potential for artificial intelligence has, for decades, been mostly relegated to the larger-than-life imaginations of Hollywood directors. From Blade Runner to Terminator, it always seems to take place in some distant and dystopian future. And yet, if there's one thing to be learned from Google's recent acquisition of the artificial intelligence startup DeepMind for a reported 400 million, it's that the heyday for this type of technology is not a century or even decades away. The global market for artificial intelligence was valued at 900 million in 2013, according to the market research firm Research and Markets. Meanwhile, a study out of Oxford University last year found that in the near future artificially intelligent technology could take over nearly half of all U.S. jobs.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

KOLKATA, India -- Across a bustling intersection from one of the first dead-letters offices, a pale blue sign beseeches pedestrians to join the future. Several hundred feet separate old, colonial India from the promise of a new, technologically transformed country. An Uber sign urges traffic safety and a gentle nudge for the ride-sharing service, which is wildly popular here. In Kolkata, capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, there are traces of the future amid decaying buildings and staggering poverty. Samsung Electronics and Dell signs mark the entrance to a dilapidated Victorian structure in the heart of the city. Kolkata is India's untold story in tech.

Many people around the world have more Denisovan DNA than previously thought, which has contributed to their sense of smell and ability to thrive at high altitudes, according to a study released Monday. Researchers know that modern humans with ancestry outside of Africa inherited up to 2.1 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals. But far less was known about Denisovans, who are believed to have shared origins with Neanderthals and account for up to 5 percent of DNA in some present day populations. The latest work, from a research team at Harvard Medical School and UCLA, developed a world map of ancient DNA. In doing so, they found that populations in Oceania populations had the highest percentage of ancient DNA – 2 percent Neanderthal and 5 percent Denisovan - while South Asians had more Denisovan DNA – 0.1 percent in Sherpas - than expected.

They died out more than 40,000 years ago but the legacy left by two prehistoric species of early humans is far more widespread than had been previously believed. Scientists have discovered a surprising number of bloodlines around the world carry fragments of DNA from Neanderthals or their sister species, the mysterious Denisovans. Their analysis suggests that our modern human ancestors appear to have interbred with the Denisovans just 100 generations after their trysts with Neanderthals. Scientists have produced new maps showing the levels of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry around the world. And the study has unearthed some surprising new benefits these illicit encounters have gifted to modern humans living today.

The robot revolution is no longer a matter of what or how, but a matter of when. And it's just a matter of 20 more years before we could be losing our jobs to more cost-efficient, and presumably, smarter artificial intelligence. Robots and artificial intelligence could boost productivity by 30% and cut costs by 90% in some industries. And because of this, there is an obvious growing demand for such technology. We are currently in competition with these facts, and it should become a reality sooner than later.