Throughout recorded history, humans have reigned unchallenged as Earth's dominant species. Turkeys, heretofore harmless creatures, have been exploding in size, swelling from an average 13.2lb (6kg) in 1929 to over 30lb today. On the rock-solid scientific assumption that present trends will persist, The Economist calculates that turkeys will be as big as humans in just 150 years. Within 6,000 years, turkeys will dwarf the entire planet. Scientists claim that the rapid growth of turkeys is the result of innovations in poultry farming, such as selective breeding and artificial insemination.

Someday, the word driver will connote something completely different than it does today. When cars are fully automated and don't need us for anything more than letting them know where to go, the job of a "driver" will be like that of a patron in a bar selecting a song on a jukebox. But that scenario, where the passenger cabin is a rolling lounge in which all occupants are free to talk, entertain themselves with electronic gadgets, or sleep, is still decades away. Until then, even the most sophisticated self-driving car will occasionally encounter a circumstance that overwhelms its computerized smarts. At those moments, it will look to a human to take charge.

Sad, mad, glad, confused about the presidential race so far? Well, if you are really lost on who to vote for, IBM may have a solution, depending on your mood. Watson Elections, one of the surprisingly few political applications for IBM's supercomputer, debuted on stage this morning at TechCrunch's Disrupt Hackathon in Brooklyn, New York to help us decided the best candidate fitting our feelings. If you are angry and disgusted right now, you may want to go for Donald Trump. A little less angry and just sadder fits a vote for Bernie Sanders.

Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind. He is one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists and has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. But till the time it happens, lets play games and kill AI. Going in the same direction, while casually talking to my friend Vishal Shukla about general purpose AI, a thought came up. Which gets boring after you figure-out the pattern in which AI play against player.

Digital personal assistants have been with us for quite a few years already, and this is valid for Android smartphone users as well as fans of iOS and/or Windows Phone. Needless to say, the biggest players in this segment are Google Now, Siri, and Cortana. These personal assistants are present on their respective operating systems out-of-the-box, and a relatively large number of third-party digital assistants are also available for download, some being more powerful and successful than others. However, as clever as the majority of personal assistants may have become, due to a variety of limitations they have yet to completely change the way we interact with our smartphones. But with the passage of time, personal assistants could become more relevant to smartphone users, and to prove this during a recent tech event in New Your City, Dag Kittlaus – one of the developers behind Apple's Siri – took the veil off "Viv", or what looks to be the most advanced personal assistant created to date.

Our next chapter meeting will be Tuesday, May 17 from 11:30-12:30 at the Louisiana Technology Park, 7117 Florida Blvd. This month we will be taking a look at recent developments in Artificial Intelligence. Is AI a technology to be feared or embraced? Will AI be a boon to humanity or, as Elon Musk has warned, "our biggest existential threat"? Our meetings are open to the public.

Throughout history, artists and scientists have sought to understand what it means to be human and create machines in our own image. Soon, a new exhibition will explore our obsession to recreate ourselves, revealing the remarkable 500-year history of humanoid robots. The forthcoming show at London's Science Museum will include a collection of more than 100 robots from a 16th-century mechanical monk to robots from science fiction and modern-day research lab. Soon, a new exhibition will explore our obsession to recreate ourselves, revealing the remarkable 500-year-old history of humanoid robots. It will enable visitors to discover the cultural, historical and technological context of humanoid robots and let them interact with 12 working humanoids on display.

When you boil it down, catching a criminal as they race around a city is nothing more than a very complex game theory problem. But rather than being able to run down 10 streets to evade detection, they can drive, get a bus, catch the subway or sprint down 100,000 streets. A computer can crunch those numbers, but not fast enough or efficiently enough for it to be any good. With Fujitsu's system, you can tell it how many officers you've got and it'll tell you where to put roadblocks and concentrate your manpower. One of the reasons that the system is now a lot faster is thanks to a partnership with Japan's University of Electro-Communications.

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

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Sony and Microsoft may be a bit embarrassed by Tuesday's reveal by China's Fuze Entertainment. The Fuze Tomahawk F1 is an Android-based game console that features the design of the PS4 hardware along with a controller that's eerily reminiscent of the Xbox One wireless controller. The console's operating system also bears a striking resemblance to the PlayStation Network. Fuze Entertainment is a new venture formed by former employees of Tencent, Huawei and Nvidia, according the ZhugeEX blog. In China, cheaper Android-based mini-systems that are designed to be family-centric entertainment machines capable of streaming TV shows or playing games is preferred over dedicated game systems in the burgeoning console market.