"She," in this case, is an avatar created by IPsoft, the global information technology services company. In a demo shown to Tech Insider, she shifts her weight from side to side when waiting for someone to speak, and smiles in between questions. If you tell her you're upset about something, she'll frown in empathy. If all goes according to plan, Amelia will be the customer service agent of the future, an "employee" who can field customer support questions for people without needing to bringing a human in. IPsoft solutions manager Benjamin Case tells Tech Insider that these low-level tasks are remarkably consistent across industries.

Most English dictionaries list words alphabetically, but how do we store them in our head? Finding out could have an unexpected pay-off: being able to tell what someone is thinking from their brain activity. Although neuroscientists can already do this to a limited extent, the brain's internal filing system for words and concepts – an important step towards accurately reading a person's thoughts – remains murky. Now Jack Gallant at the University of California, Berkeley, and his team have charted the "semantic system" of the human brain. The resulting map reveals that we organise words according to their deeper meaning, in subcategories based around numbers, places, and other common themes. Previous "mind-reading" studies have shown that certain parts of the brain respond to particular words.

If all you've ever wanted to do in virtual reality is swing a pixellated virtual pick, that happy day has finally arrived. Minecraft for Samsung and Oculus' Gear VR headset is available right now from the Oculus Store for 6.99. It's technically called Minecraft: Gear VR Edition, but it's basically Minecraft Pocket Edition for Samsung and Oculus' tether-free 99 budget-priced headset. The catch is that you'll need a recent Galaxy S-series phone, limiting the appeal to a subset of Android users. If you've already checked that box, this version has all the Pocket Edition's Creative and Survival modes, skins and multiplayer options.

When thinking of a word it may seem like its meaning is plucked from the ether, but new research has revealed the brain uses a highly organised system for storing words based on their meaning and context. Scientists in the US have produced a'semantic atlas' that pinpoints where in the brain definitions of individual words are stored, in stunning detail, and it could lead to a map of the brain that helps experts decode people's inner thoughts. The mesmerising atlas shows the words in vivid colours and multiple dimensions and it has been dubbed the'brain's dictionary.' New research has revealed that the brain uses a highly organised archiving system for language, where words are grouped by related meaning and context (pictured). Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley produced an atlas pinpointing where in the brain definitions of individual words are stored, illustrating the brain's semantic system in stunning detail The model shows that rather than every word having its own chunk of brain real estate, networks of words are grouped together. Different parts of the brain are given over to different tasks, such as the vision, hearing or emotional processing.

There are some mistakes that we make habitually. Even as we're doing it, a part of our brain is screaming: "This is absolutely the wrong thing to do." But somehow, before we know it, we've gone ahead done it; we've bought a ticket to see Batman v Superman. Sometimes those things happen in games too. It doesn't matter how experienced you are at Call of Duty, there are moments you think you can take out several incoming players at once by charging at them with your pistol and two bullets in the clip.

The drones may go into service very soon. Paris is one of the key hosts for both the upcoming Euro 2016 football/soccer championship and the Tour de France, and the police will likely want whatever tools they can get to detect (and maybe even deter) criminals who might be lurking in the throngs of sports fans. However, there are privacy concerns. While there's a law requiring that security drone operators let people know they're being watched, French rights groups are still worried that the proliferation of drones could lead to widespread surveillance. The rules open the door to exceptions for police when "public order" and security are at stake -- and when there's still a state of emergency, officers might be tempted to use those exceptions often.

Scientists in the US have mapped out how the brain organises language. Their "semantic atlas" shows how, for example, one region of the brain activates in response to words about clothing and appearance. The researchers found that these maps were quite similar across the small number of individuals in the study, even down to minor details. The work, by a team at the University of California, Berkeley, is published in the journal Nature. It had previously been proposed that information about words' meaning was represented in a group of brain regions known as the semantic system.

Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to land an unmanned spacecraft on Mars as soon as 2018 with the help of NASA, an extraordinary collaboration between the public and private sector in an effort to eventually get humans to the Red Planet. SpaceX made the announcement on Twitter Wednesday, laying out an ambitious timeline for an incredibly difficult mission that only governments have dared try. Landing a spacecraft or a robot that can then operate successfully on the Martian surface is so difficult that the U.S. is the only country to have done it, and many attempts over the years have failed. Planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018. Red Dragons will inform overall Mars architecture, details to come pic.twitter.com/u4nbVUNCpA

Creativity is alive and well at Samsung, which is developing several cool devices in its labs, including a home companion robot called Otto. The multi-talented robot can answer questions and double as a part-time security system when needed. It is expected to be demonstrated at the Samsung Developer Conference this week in San Francisco. Functionally, Otto is similar in some ways to Amazon Echo, featuring an interactive speaker that can answer questions, order products and play music. But the robot also includes a "head" that hosts a high-definition camera and a display.

All artwork in the competition are more than the typical landscapes and photorealistic portraits. "I was telling the teams, if their robot knocks over a can of paint and they think it's beautiful, they should submit it," said Conru. "We have no limit on to what constitutes art." The Carnegie Mellon team have created a bot that works like an invisible coloring book. The robot has a paintbrush that is attached to a robotic arm and guides the human hand to follow the guidelines set in a paint program.