We take a look at how robots are changing the world by counting down the top robotic technology right now. When it comes to robots, there are many ways you can look at them. But the fact is, most of that is just fantasy – the tales of sci-fi movies and novels. Of course, we'll more than likely see a day when robots are mainstream or even our equals, although that won't happen any time soon. They're mostly prototypes and elaborate plans put together by billion-dollar companies at this stage. However, that's not to say robotic technology doesn't have potential.

This spring, Livorno (Italy) will host the second Soft Robotics Week (April 25-30, 2016), an exciting week totally dedicated to Soft Robotics, featuring a unique concentration of several scientific, cultural and educational events and the RoboSoft Grand Challenge. International experts across multiple fields in the scientific community of soft robotics, industrial leaders, young researchers and students, will meet together to discuss current trends and applications for soft robots and their prospects for the future.

In all, the neural network trained off of 222 images, including photographs of his work from multiple angles. Where things get interesting, though, is how Lund can tweak his neural network to output different kinds of paintings.

Computer AI has long been defeating humans in the game of chess, and earlier this year Google's AlphaGo became the first to beat a world champion in the ancient Chinese board game Go, but now it's time to settle the score in a game that really matters: a classic FPS. That's what a group of AI researchers hope to see, with a new challenge inviting computers to face-off in Doom, but playing as humans would. The "Visual AI Doom Competition" will be hosted by the 2016 Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) Conference later this year, and now the group is accepting applications to find the best bots that can play a round of deathmatch against each other using the same learning techniques as a human. But this isn't the same kind of AI used for enemies when you play a game against bots. No, this kind of computer AI will not have all-encompassing knowledge of the game and its workings, instead it will have to rely only on what it "sees" as input.

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 22, 2016) - Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), China's leading search engine, today announced it has formed a self-driving car team in Silicon Valley focused on research, development and testing. The team will be part of Baidu's newly-created Autonomous Driving Unit (ADU). Baidu plans to grow the team to over 100 researchers and engineers by the end of the year. The team will include machine learning researchers as well as hardware and software engineers across a variety of technical domains, from robotics and computer vision to onboard computers and sensors. Additionally, the company is looking for individuals with experience in the automotive industry.

Internet giant Google has asserted that its Artificial Intelligence(AI) and cloud computing is the most lucrative and promising businesses in the tech industry. That AI type of service-based business is fast becoming the new way to reap profits in the tech industry, the California-based tech giant said. "We've always been doing cloud, it's just that we've been consuming it all internally at Google. But as we have grown, really matured in how we handle our data center investments and how we can do this at scale, we have definitely crossed over to the other side to where we can thoughtfully serve external customers," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said. "We have been investing in machine learning and AI for years, but I think we're at an exceptionally interesting tipping point where these technologies are really taking off. That is very, very applicable to businesses as well. So thoughtfully doing that externally we view as a big differentiator we have over others," Pichai added.

GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA – Wearing black headsets with tentacle-like sensors stretched over their foreheads, the competitors stared at cubes floating on computer screens as their small white drones prepared for takeoff. "Three, two, one … go!" the announcer hollered, and as the racers fixed their thoughts on pushing the cubes, the drones suddenly whirred, rose and buzzed through the air. Some struggled to move, while others zipped confidently across the finish line. The competition -- billed as the world's first drone race involving a brain-controlled interface -- involved 16 pilots using willpower to drive drones through a 10-yard (9.1-meter) dash over an indoor basketball court at the University of Florida on April 16. Organizers hope to make the event an annual intercollegiate spectacle, involving ever-more dynamic moves and challenges.

Machine learning has come of age in public health reporting according to researchers from the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. They have found that existing algorithms and open source machine learning tools were as good as, or better than, human reviewers in detecting cancer cases using data from free-text pathology reports. The computerized approach was also faster and less resource intensive in comparison to human counterparts. Every state in the United States requires cancer cases to be reported to statewide cancer registries for disease tracking, identification of at-risk populations, and recognition of unusual trends or clusters. Typically, however, busy health care providers submit cancer reports to equally busy public health departments months into the course of a patient's treatment rather than at the time of initial diagnosis.

SEOUL--Humanity has fallen to artificial intelligence in checkers, chess, and, last month, Go, the complex ancient Chinese board game. But some of the world's biggest nerds are confident that machines will meet their Waterloo on the pixelated battlefields of the computer strategy game StarCraft. A key reason: Unlike machines, humans are good at lying. StarCraft, created in 1998, is one of the world's most popular computer game franchises. It pits three races against one another: the humanlike Terrans, the slimy insectoid Zerg and a mystical race with psionic powers called the Protoss.

Artificial intelligence is being used to reduce poaching. Scientists have developed an AI system that uses – and learns from – information on where poaching is taking place to map out the most effective patrols for rangers seeking to protect wildlife. Thousands of animals are illegally killed every day for their skin, traditional medicines and trophy hunting. As a result, wild tiger populations have decreased 95% over the past 100 years, black rhinos have reduced by 98% since 1960, and more than 30,000 elephants are killed each year for their ivory. Human patrols are the most direct way to protect wildlife from poachers.