"ROBOTS ARE NOT taking over the world", was the message given this week during United Nations talks on the issue of autonomous weapons. That's according to the diplomat leading the first official talks on the issue, the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), as they sought to ease criticism over slow progress towards restricting the use of so-called "killer robots". The United Nations was wrapping up an initial five days of discussions on weapons systems that can identify and destroy targets without human control, which experts say will soon be battle ready. The meeting of the CCW marked an initial step towards an agreed set of rules governing such weapons. But activists warned that time was running out and that the glacial pace of the UN-brokered discussions was not responding to an arms race already underway.

Australia's Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, has called on governments and businesses across the world to consider developing a regulatory framework for artificial intelligence devices, ranging from the likes of Apple's Siri to weaponised drones. Dr Finkel, who was speaking at the Creative Innovation Global conference, said he was optimistic about AI, but an ethical stamp needed to be developed, similar to a Fair Trade label, in order to give consumers trust that the AI in a device had been developed according to specified global standards. "Two years ago I published an article in Cosmos magazine calling for a global accord [on weaponised drones]. In the same year, more than 3000 AI and robotics researchers signed an open letter urging the leaders of the world to take action to prevent a global arms race," he said. "On the other end of the spectrum are tools in everyday use, such as social media platforms and smartphones.

Australian experts have spoken out about a recent US study that claimed to show artificial intelligence can identify people with suicidal thoughts - by analysing their brain scans. It sounds promising - but it's worth pointing out only 79 people were studied, so are the results enough to show this is a path worth pursing? The research, published in Nature, studied brain activity in subjects when presented with a number of different words - like death, cruelty, trouble, carefree, good and praise. A machine-learning algorithm was then trained to see the nureal response differences between the two groups involved - those with suicidal thoughts, and those with non-suicidal thoughts. And it showed promise - the algorithm correctly identified 15 of 17 patients as belonging to the suicide group, and 16 of 17 healthy individuals as belonging to the control group.

GENEVA – "Robots are not taking over the world," the diplomat leading the first official talks on autonomous weapons assured the meeting Friday, seeking to ease criticism over slow progress toward restricting the use of "killer robots." The United Nations was wrapping up an initial five days of discussions on weapons systems that can identify and destroy targets without human control. Experts say such weapons will soon be ready for battle. The meeting of the U.N.'s Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) marked an initial step toward rules governing such weapons. But activists warned that time is running out and that the glacial pace of the U.N.-brokered discussions is not responding to an arms race already underway.

Apple has delayed its $349 'HomePod' home speaker until early next year. The gadget will battle Amazon's Echo and Google Home for the lucrative smart speaker market, using Apple music and Siri to do everything from play music to give news and traffic updates. The firm today said it needed'a little more time before it's ready.' The new $349 smart'HomePod' home speaker will go on sale later this year, and use Siri to aplay music and answer questions. Apple also unveiled iOS 11 and new iPads at the event. Apple said: "We can't wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple's breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it's ready for our customers.

Apple has delayed the HomePod, its next big new release. The Siri-enabled speaker is intended to be Apple's response to the increasing popularity of gadgets like the Amazon Echo, Google Home and the Sonos One. But it will have to wait a while before taking them on, since it has been delayed until "early 2018". "We can't wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple's breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it's ready for our customers," a statement from Apple said. "We'll start shipping in the US, UK, and Australia in early 2018."

Apple promised to release the HomePod in December, but the company now says it won't start shipping them until next year. Apple revealed the HomePod at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June and had said it would come out for the holiday season, but that won't be the case anymore. "We can't wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple's breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it's ready for our customers. We'll start shipping in the US, UK and Australia in early 2018." The delayed release date means that people who wanted to buy the HomePod for the holidays won't be able to anymore.

We hope you weren't counting on giving (or getting) a HomePod for the holidays -- Apple has delayed the release of the Siri-powered speaker from December to early 2018. In a statement, the company said it needed a "little more time" before the device was ready for its initial release in Australia, the UK and the US. It's not yet clear how this will affect releases in other countries (we've asked the company if it can elaborate), but we wouldn't be surprised if it pushed back their releases slightly as well. They were already being asked to wait until early 2018. You can read the full statement below.

"Accessibility by design" is an important concept for Microsoft, and one that underpins many of its artificial intelligence-powered products, including Seeing AI. Announced on Wednesday among a series of other AI tools, Seeing AI is a free mobile application designed to support people with visual impairments by narrating the world around them. The app -- which is an ongoing research project bringing together deep learning and Microsoft Cognitive Services -- can read documents, making sense of structural elements such as headings, paragraphs, and lists, as well as identify a product using its barcode. It can additionally recognise and describe images in other apps, and even pinpoint people's faces and provide a description of their appearance, though camera quality and lighting might influence its description. At the Microsoft Future of Artificial Intelligence event in Sydney, Kenny Johar Singh, a Melbourne-based cloud solutions architect at Microsoft, demonstrated Seeing AI, which he uses to help navigate the physical world.

Researchers from our group at QUT and the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision have had six papers accepted to the upcoming Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation to be held at The University of Technology Sydney. This year the conference trialed a dual submission process with the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, meaning work can be presented at both conferences but only published in the proceedings of one. The papers cover ongoing research in our lab spanning topics including robotics, positioning and AI for applications in mining, construction safety and autonomous vehicles. I'll give an overview here of the research we're doing, and a wrap up at the end. Despite very high safety standards, work sites of all varieties around Australia still cause large numbers of injuries and occasional fatalities.