There's pleasure to be had in the hunt for gratification for sure. That's why we love Tinder, flash sale sites, and fishing (like the saying goes, "they call it fishing, not catching.") But when you don't want to hunt--but just to find–search technology is outmoded and stuck in the '90s, giving us clunky, cluttered, and impersonal lists we have to wade through. What most of us are doing when we "search" is not enjoying the process of "searching" but doing what we have to do to get what we want. Search is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.

When MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab researchers showed videos of a drumstick hitting and brushing through various objects, subjects were fooled into believing that the sounds they heard actually came from the objects and materials on screen. Instead, a computer programmed to analyze the video and apply the correct sounds from its own library of samples chose the audio clips for all the videos. And the subjects were none the wiser. The team's work is described in a new paper released Monday and being presented next week at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in Las Vegas. To be clear, there really isn't any such thing as an Auditory Turing test.

Researchers recently used an artificial intelligence to run a complex experiment, which it learnt to perform from scratch in under an hour. "A simple computer program would have taken longer than the age of the Universe to run through all the combinations and work this out," said co-lead researcher Paul Wigley from the Australian National University Research School of Physics and Engineering. This suggests that even physicists are on track to having their jobs augmented if not outright captured by artificial intelligence. The experiment involved the creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, an extremely cold gas trapped in a laser beam. At a billionth of a degree Kelvin, it is even colder than outer space.

New technology could lead humans to relinquish control over decisions to use lethal force. As artificial intelligence advances, the possibility that machines could independently select and fire on targets is fast approaching. Fully autonomous weapons, also known as "killer robots," are quickly moving from the realm of science fiction toward reality. The unmanned Sea Hunter gets underway. At present it sails without weapons, but it exemplifies the move toward greater autonomy.

Rolls-Royce has unveiled its first driverless vehicle, a concept car that promises to help its owner announce their importance to the world. The Vision Next 100 is an autonomous vehicle aimed at "the most discerning and powerful patrons in the world". It has no steering wheel and a silk "throne" from which its occupants can watch the world go by. Rolls-Royce said the zero-emission model, codenamed 103EX, showed the company "rejects the notion of anonymous, utilitarian and bland future modes of mobility". In a statement that was short on technical specifications but packed with florid description, Rolls-Royce promised an interior made only of "the most precious and contemporary elegance". The owner will be "encircled by the most modern handcrafted fine-line Macassar wood panelling" as they gaze at a "generous" high-definition television screen.

Most of us carry a tracking device around with us every day in the form of the mobile phones, but some people are going further and having microchips embedded in their bodies. Now the US Navy has grown so concerned over the practice that is drawing up an official policy to help it deal with personnel who have chips implanted. Officials consulted with American presidential candidate and'transhumanist' Zoltan Istvan to discuss the implications of fitting humans with microchips to enhance their powers. Officials from the US Navy met with US presidential candidate and'transhumanist' Zoltan Istvan to discuss the'merger of humans and machines'. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is already working on microchips that can be implanted into soldiers' brains to make them more resilient to warfare.

The FBI's facial recognition database has more than 400 million pictures to help its criminal investigations, but lacks adequate safeguards for accuracy and privacy protection, a congressional audit has revealed. Totalling 411.9 million images, privacy campaigners have slammed the'unprecedented number of photographs, most of which are of Americans and foreigners who have committed no crimes.' The huge database - which enables investigators to automatically search images for criminal suspects - 'is far greater than had previously been understood' and raises concerns'about the risk of innocent Americans being inadvertently swept up in criminal investigations,' said Senator Al Franken, who requested the study. The FBI's facial recognition database includes some 30 million criminal mugshots and 140 million images from visa applications by foreign nationals The FBI's database includes some 30 million criminal mugshots and 140 million images from visa applications by foreign nationals, the GAO found. It also contains drivers' license pictures from 16 US states and 6.7 million photos from the Defense Department's biometric identification system of individuals detained by US forces abroad, among others.

Wal-Mart could finally end the frustration of not being able to find the final food item on your shopping list - and becoming completely bewildered the second you set foot in one of their stores. It is working with a robotics firm to develop'driverless' shopping carts that allows customers to scan in their shopping list - and then guides them to the right aisle and shelf. This new innovation is a way for Wal-Mart to compete with the convenience that Amazon and other online stores offer consumers. Wal-Mart is working with a robotics firm to develop'driverless' shopping carts that will help customers find items on their lists. Wal-Mart is working with a robotics firm to developing'driverless' shopping carts that help customers find items on their lists. It has implemented tools that allow consumers to scan and purchase items using their mobile phones –without ever having to step foot in a checkout line.

So Watson might then suggest, "'If you save your dry cleaning and do it tomorrow, you can avoid traffic," says Greenstein. Or along similar lines, "The weather is worse tomorrow, so I'll pick you up 10 minutes early." But for all of the natural language possibilities in this Local Motors project, a car's AI might soon be able to do a lot more than converse with you and check traffic. In fact, Greenstein tells us that IBM is currently working with major automobile manufacturers in North America, Europe, and Asia, developing technologies that are anywhere from one to four years out from market. "Some [work] is voice interface, hands-free driving, simpler user experience," Greenstein says. "There are also some car companies who are talking to us about how to make maintenance and diagnostics better, so if something happens, you don't just get a red light."

A robot escaped from a science lab and caused a traffic jam in one Russian city, it's reported. Scientists at the Promobot laboratories in Perm had been teaching the machine how to move around independently, but it broke free after an engineer forgot to shut a gate, says the local edition of the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper. The robot found its way to a nearby street, covering a distance of about 50m (164ft), before its battery ran out, the daily says. An eyewitness video posted online shows a vaguely humanoid machine standing in the middle of a busy road, guarded by a traffic policeman. It is then wheeled off by a human, presumably an engineer from the company that developed the robot. Russian Channel 5 TV also showed footage of the incident, and said that the robot spent about 40 minutes at large.