If you're considering solar power but aren't quite sure it's worth the expense, Google wants to point you in the right direction. Tapping its trove of satellite imagery and the latest in artificial intelligence, the company is offering a new online service that will instantly estimate how much you'll save with a roof full of solar panels. On Monday, the company unveiled Project Sunroof, a tool that calculates your home's solar power potential using the same high-resolution aerial photos Google Earth uses to map the planet. After creating a 3-D model of your roof, the service estimates how much sun will hit those solar panels during the year and how much money the panels could save you over the next two decades. "People search Google all the time to learn about solar," says Google's Joel Conkling.

Periscope turns anyone with an iPhone into a video broadcaster. And people are paying attention. After Twitter acquired the company earlier this year, the app bolted ahead of competitors in the Apple App Store, bringing the livestream into the mainstream. Many people used Periscope feeds to watch the big Paquiao-Mayweather fight this past Saturday night. The problem lies in finding the feeds you most want to watch. Most Periscope feeds are just people speaking directly into the camera about whatever happens to be on their mind.

This fall, customers cruising the aisles of Lowe's home improvement stores in the San Francisco Bay Area may see a new type of employee taking inventory and assisting shoppers. You won't find a nametag on this worker, but you won't confuse it with other employees, either. The new kid in town is the LoweBot, an autonomous retail service robot that scans and audits store inventory on the floor. It uses voice recognition to identify products for customers and lead them to the right shelf -- in multiple languages. The retailer is deploying LoweBots at 11 of its Bay Area stores over a seven-month period using NAVii robots made by Fellow Robots, following a successful two-year pilot program of a first-generation robot called OSHbot that was tested at one of Lowe's Orchard Supply Hardware stores.

On a white sand beach tucked between gleaming upscale resorts along the west coast of Barbados, a group of sunburned computer scientists, graduate students, and technicians look on intently as a small canary-yellow robot ambles up and down the beach. A few curious beachgoers soon join them. The robot is more than just lovable. With six rotating flippers, three on each side of its boxy metal carapace, this machine is amphibious, capable of both walking and swimming--an attribute that is unique in the robot world. As more onlookers gather, the little robot heads out through the surf and disappears into the turquoise waters that surround this Caribbean island.

Siri made the iPhone more responsive with artificial intelligence, but now its founders want to put AI in every device you own. Dag Kittlaus, who cofounded Siri, left Apple five years ago, but now he's back with a new voice assistant named Viv that he predicts will change the way we interact with not just our phones, but our home appliances, cars, and more. Viv has gotten a lot of hype for a product that hasn't shipped yet, but Kittlaus demoed Viv publicly for the first time at TechCrunch Disrupt on Monday. Right now, Viv is an iOS app, though it won't always be. You open the app and ask the assistant questions or issue commands.

The Planetary Society's LightSail, funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign, will aim to demonstrate that controlled solar sailing is possible. The Planetary Society's LightSail, funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign, will aim to demonstrate that controlled solar sailing is possible. The Planetary Society's LightSail, funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign, will aim to demonstrate that controlled solar sailing is possible. When it comes to incredible science, 2015 will be hard to top. Among a number of notable events, we got our first, thrilling look at Pluto, found evidence that liquid water still flows on Mars and began facing the reality that human gene editing is closer than ever thanks to the CRISPR system.

Watson, IBM Corp.'s supercomputer that famously competed on the television show "Jeopardy," is coming West. The technology giant said Thursday it planned to open a second headquarters in San Francisco early next year for the project, which represents one of the most advanced investments in artificial intelligence. The move, which includes giving developers access to Watson's technologies, will help IBM connect with data scientists and start-ups in Silicon Valley. "Since introducing the Watson development platform, thousands of people have used these technologies in new and inventive ways, and many have done so without extensive experience as a coder or data scientist," Mike Rhodin, senior vice president for IBM Watson, said in a statement. "We believe that by opening Watson to all, and continuously expanding what it can do, we are democratizing the power of data, and with it innovation."

Commuting may never be the same again in Nevada, the US state that is home to Las Vegas, legalised gambling and huge amounts of desert. Besides gambling, it is now legal there to have a self-driven car – providing it matches up to the specification achieved by Google's autonomous models. The first fully licensed self-driven car – a modified Toyota Prius – won a special permit on Tuesday, the first of three applied for by Google, which allows it to be used on the state's roads, including the famous Las Vegas strip. Autonomous vehicles are the "car of the future," said Bruce Breslow, the director of Nevada's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), in a statement. The state also has plans to eventually license autonomous vehicles owned by members of the public, the DMV said.

Many drivers, tired of long journeys and tedious traffic jams, are looking forward to when self-driving cars will be an affordable option. And while Google and car makers are working on the next generation of vehicles, a $10,000 (£5,900) gadget could beat the big firms to controlling your car remotely, as soon as next year. The Cruise RP-1 claims to be the world's first'highway autopilot' and can take control of car on a motorway, keeping it safely in lane and a suitable distance from the car in front. Easy driver: The Cruise RP-1 (pictured) claims to be the world's first'highway autopilot' and can take control of car on a motorway, keeping it safely in lane and a suitable distance from the car in front The Cruise RP-1 claims to be the world's first'highway autopilot' and can take control of car on a motorway, keeping it safely in lane and a suitable distance from the car in front. It comprises a rooftop sensor unit, computer in the boot and control panel next to the driver.

First it was Amazon drones; now Google is rolling out robots. The tech company revealed it is developing humanoid robots focused on automating daily tasks, according to The New York Times Wednesday, right on the heels of Amazon announcing the development of a drone delivery program, PrimeAir. Though Google remained tight-lipped on where the project stands, and what specific tasks its robots might do, the announcement has spurred conversation on what role artificial intelligence and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) may play in our future. The project is spearheaded by Google executive Andy Rubin; better known as the engineer who built Google's Android software. He sees the robots as a way to alleviate daily grunt work, possibly in a consumer goods delivery setting.