I would like to propose that Watson could solve one of the biggest challenges facing anyone trying to innovate and product their innovation with a US patent - the USPTO first office action. While everyone is working hard and I know the patent office is overloaded, here how three problems I've seen over my years of working that perhaps Watson could address: 1) Speed - it can take 6-12 months to get a first office action 2) Almost any patent application is nowadays first rejected due to obviousness. But the patents cited to create this argument are often taken out of context. To me, these seem like challenges that Watson would be perfectly designed to addressed. And all the literature to be reviewed is, by definition, in the public domain.

Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China on Friday revealed a realistic robot they've been working on for the past three years. Called, Jia Jia, the robot is said to be capable of human-like facial expressions, along with talking and interacting with people nearby. While its creators describe it as looking similar to a "real woman," at least it's a step up from that nightmarish home-made Scarlett Johansson robot. Among the details the researchers have incorporated into Jia Jia are the way its eyes will glance around a room in a natural way, as well as mouth movements that align with its speaking. Not only can it respond to humans, but it can recognize when someone is taking a picture and make appropriate comments, such as warning not to stand too close for fear of making her face "look fat."

Picture the scenario - a sentient machine is "living" in the US in the year 2050 and starts browsing through the US constitution. Having read it, it decides that it wants the opportunity to vote. Oh, and it also wants the right to procreate. Pretty basic human rights that it feels it should have now it has human-level intelligence. "Do you give it the right to vote or the right to procreate because you can't do both?" asks Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington.

A computer can probably beat you at chess and no one goes anywhere without a GPS. Transhumanist prophet Ray Kurzweil says we will ascend into being computers in a few years (though he also claims solar power will out-produce fossil fuels in a decade, so use caution when he is selling books) but some think it's the other way around, and that humans will instead be the ultimate supercomputers. Danish physicist Jacob Sherson, writing about his beliefs in Nature, said, "It may sound dramatic, but we are currently in a race with technology -- and steadily being overtaken in many areas. Features that used to be uniquely human are fully captured by contemporary algorithms. Our results are here to demonstrate that there is still a difference between the abilities of a man and a machine."

Early on Sunday morning, humankind came one step closer to building a portable habitat for Mars, as an inflatable room was attached to the International Space Station where it will be tested for durability over the next two years. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, is a 3,086-pound pod made of layers of fabric and Kevlar-like material that one day might be able to house astronauts during deep-space missions, and possibly even space tourists on sightseeing trips. Developing an expandable space shelter would be a boon to the future of space exploration, says NASA, because this type of structure offers abundant living and working space while being much lighter and more compact than a metal structure. This makes inflatable pods easier to fit onto rockets and cheaper to launch. "When we're traveling to Mars or beyond, astronauts need habitats that are both durable and easy to transport and to set up," NASA wrote in a Tumblr post.

IBM announced a deal with sports and fitness retailer Under Armour Inc. to use machine learning technology from Watson and showed off an application for diabetic care developed with the supercomputer's data, highlighting the company's effort to expand Watson's capabilities for the health-care industry. IBM and Under Armour released an updated fitness application for Apple Inc.'s iPhones that uses data powered by Watson, IBM Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty said Wednesday in a speech at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Separately, Medtronic Plc CEO Omar Ishrak joined Rometty on stage to unveil a prototype for a diabetes-management app that tests have shown may be capable of predicting hypoglycemic events as early as three hours in advance. The application still needs to go through regulatory review -- it will roll out this summer, Rometty said. The ability to predict the hypoglycemic events is a "breakthrough," she said.

Is an intelligent robot capable of taking over your job? New research implies the answer is probably yes -- if not now, then very soon. Fortune magazine recently stated that "technological unemployment" is a significant factor in the rising number of working-age men who are without jobs. Geoff Colvin's recent book, Humans Are Underrated, observes that robots, augmented by AI, continue to take over repetitive tasks in the workplace, many of which used to be considered beyond the capability of technology. These tasks include translating written languages, loading and unloading a dishwasher, making hamburgers, and analyzing thousands of documents during the discovery phase of a lawsuit.

In a span of two and a half hours, Microsoft packed a lot into the opening keynote of its Build 2016 conference. But it was the last video shown that seem to have the biggest impact on many of the viewers at home: the introduction of an AI that helps one of its blind developers "see." At the very end of its keynote, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reiterated that he wants technology to enhance the ways humans communicate. Though the many chat bots he introduced earlier seems technologically "smart," the framework behind it still needs the help of developers to continue improving on what has already been built. Some of the biggest names in tech are coming to TNW Conference in Amsterdam this May.

The University of Science and Technology of China on Friday officially launched the robot "Jiajia" it invented for interactive experience. HEFEI, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A new interactive robot, named Jia Jia, was unveiled Friday by the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province. Welcome!" the eye-catching robot said as it greeted the audience at the university's multi-media center. "Don't come too close to me when you are taking a picture. It will make my face look fat," Jia Jia said. Jia Jia was developed by a robot research and development team at the USTC, which also developed the model service robot "Kejia." It took the team three years to research and develop this new-generation interactive robot, which can speak, show micro-expressions, move its lips, and move its body, according to team director Chen Xiaoping. Compared to previous interactive robots, Jia Jia's eyeballs roll naturally and its speech is in sync with its lip movements, in addition to her human-like form, Chen said. Jia Jia can not cry or laugh and these are areas to be developed, Chen added. "We hope to develop the robot so it has deep learning abilities.

Artificial intelligence (A.I. as many refer to it) is quickly becoming our reality. And even though its technology is all around us, many of us don't understand what that technology is. The "misconception" about artificial intelligence, is that it's a "robot," says Tim Urban, whose stick-figure-filled explainer on the technology has been read by more than 4 million people on his website, Wait But Why. The robot, however, is merely the "container" for the artificial intelligence, Urban told Olivia Stern for "Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist." "The A.I. is the software inside the container. The A.I. is, in particular, software that can make decisions."