I have been writing about video games full time for nearly seven years now, and I don't know if I've ever experienced a month like this past one before. Not to complain about playing and reviewing games for a living, but wow this has been intense. I started with 30 hours of Horizon Zero Dawn in a week in order to write that review. Then, my Switch arrived, and I sunk about 80 hours in Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which I wasn't reviewing, but wanted to play and write about constantly all the same since it's arguably one of the best games ever made. And I only put that game down when my review copy of Mass Effect: Andromeda showed up, and to hit that embargo, I put in 60 hours in six days.

NHGRI medical geneticist Paul Kruszka explains that "Human malformation syndromes appear different in different parts of the world. Even experienced clinicians have difficulty diagnosing genetic syndromes in non-European populations." That's where facial recognition comes in. The NHGRI team studied the photographs of 101 participants with the rare disease from Africa, Asia and Latin America. They then developed a facial recognition tech that was able to correctly diagnose the condition 96.6 percent of the time during their trial runs.

The latest issue of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine features a special report on open-source robotics hardware and its impact in the field. We've seen how, over the last several years, open source software--platforms like the Robot Operating System (ROS), Gazebo, and OpenCV, among others--has played a huge role in helping researchers and companies build robots better and faster. Can the same thing happen with robot hardware? It's already happening, says robotics researcher and RAM editor-in-chief Bram Vanderborght, who explains that building hardware has gotten much easier thanks to things like 3D printers, laser cutters, modular open electronics kits, and other rapid prototyping and fabrication techniques. And while "open-source robotics hardware is taking longer to catch on" compared to open-source robotics software, he notes that "several impressive examples exist, taking advantage of benefits of those novel rapid prototyping possibilities."

Disrupting the streaming music market is extremely difficult to do, given the entrenched positions of Pandora and Spotify in the world market. But Brazilian company SuperPlayer is doing just that, with its streaming music service that is simple, curated, and effectively halves the price of Spotify's Premium service in Brazil. With the ability to listen to music offline without consuming data, Spotify should be worried. But the most impressive disruption that SuperPlayer has pulled off is using chatbots in their influencer marketing schemes. It's no secret that chatbots are essential to customer service, but SuperPlayer is the first to integrate music into chatbots, and effectively.

Google said on Wednesday it would offer an audio-only option on its Duo video calls service to help users communicate using poor-quality connections, and was adding a feature to permit file sharing in group chats on its Allo messaging App. The company launched Google Duo in August, providing video calls for users on Android and iOS, pitting it against Apple Inc's FaceTime, Microsoft Corp's video-calling app Skype and Facebook Inc's Messenger. Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, said audio-only calls on Duo would be available from Wednesday in Brazil, and would be rolled out to users around the world in the coming days. The audio-only calls would work well on all connection speeds and be data efficient, Google Vice President for Product Management Mario Queiroz said in a blog post after he announced the moves at a Google conference in Sao Paulo. In response to requests from users in countries like Brazil, Google said that Android users everywhere would be able to share documents and other files (.pdf, .docs,

SpaceX fans are excited about what is likely the first clear image of a robot that could be used on the company's autonomous spaceport drone ships. SpaceX's Of Course I Still Love You Drone Ship is seen at Port Canaveral on Monday, March 20, 2017. In the lower-right is what is believed to be a Falcon 9 first stage securing vehicle. CAPE CANAVERAL -- Stephen Marr had his suspicions when he photographed a mysterious piece of equipment atop SpaceX's drone ship at Port Canaveral on Monday. "I knew there was something different there," Marr, 34, said. So he did what any lover of space and social media would do: He posted it online.

Arthur Renowitzky can't help but command attention as he walks down the street on a sunny autumn morning. A driver lowers her window to flash a smile and a thumbs-up. "You got this," she says. Renowitzky has been paralyzed since 2007 after being shot in the chest for $20 and a fake gold chain. But he can stand and walk, using crutches for balance, when wearing an exoskeleton suit with motorized hips and knees powering his movements.

A majority (84 per cent) of companies polled for a study see the use of artificial intelligence (AI) as "essential" to competitiveness, with a further 50 per cent seeing the technology as "transformative," according to Tata Consultancy Services' Global Trend Study titled, "Getting Smarter by the Day: How AI is Elevating the Performance of Global Companies." Exploring the views and actions of decision makers from global companies with average revenues of $20 billion, the study revealed AI is spreading across almost all areas of a company. Asia Pacific companies reported an average 19 per cent increase in revenue stemming from AI. AI spend in the region is expected to hit US$57 million this year. The biggest adopters of AI today are, not surprisingly, IT departments, with two-thirds (67 per cent) of survey respondents using AI to detect security intrusions, user issues and deliver automation. However, by 2020, almost a third (32 per cent) of companies believe AI's greatest impact will be in sales, marketing or customer service, while one in five (20 per cent) see AI's impact being largest in non-customer facing corporate functions, including finance, strategic planning, corporate development, and human resources.

Chile's Atacama Desert contains Earth's closest Mars-like conditions: It's extremely dry with high UV radiation from the sun. So naturally, NASA has made the area it's go-to practice facility for tests and experiments that they may one day perform on the red planet. Recently, scientists from NASA's Atacama Rover Astrobiology Drilling Studies completed their second season of tests. The tested KREX-2 rover was able to rove, drill, and detect life signs all at the same time. Such multi-tasking robotic rovers could ultimately help scientists to figure out if there was (or still is) microbial life forms under Mars' surface.

Artificial intelligence will have a dramatic impact on business by 2020, according to study released this week by IT services, consulting and business solutions provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The firm's study, "Getting Smarter by the Day: How AI is Elevating the Performance of Global Companies," shows that 84 percent of the 835 executives TCS surveyed from North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America said their companies see the use of AI as "essential" to competitiveness. Artificial intelligence in the real world: What can it actually do? What are the limits of AI? And how do you go from managing data points to injecting AI in the enterprise?