Taanayel, Bekaa, Lebanon - After more than five years of brutal conflict, Hope of Syria may sound like an ambitious name - but this young team of robot engineers is eager to help shoulder the responsibility of rebuilding their country. The team, composed entirely of Syrian refugee students, recently won a national robotics competition in Lebanon, when their robot, SYR01, managed to shoot the most balls into a net. They will now compete in the Vex world robotics competition on April 20 in the US state of Kentucky, coming up against some 450 other teams from around the world. While winning the tournament is their first priority, team member Amjad al-Homsi, 17, says they also want to draw attention to the plight of Syrians. "[It's about] putting the spotlight on Syrians," Homsi, the team's engineering network manager, told Al Jazeera.

As part of the auto show 2015 Tokyo Motor Show was shown a lot of amazing new products. However, the most striking is the machine invented by engineers Yamaha. Yamaha has decided to all hit, unveiled its new development – a humanoid robot motorcycle racer Motobot. This electro-mechanical humanoid creature, able to control the bike on the track. It can easily manipulate the controls like knobs accelerator, brake lever and shift.

Soft robots that can grasp delicate objects, computer algorithms designed to spot an "insider threat," and artificial intelligence that will sift through large data sets -- these are just a few …

It is a federal crime to shoot down aircraft, and this week, the FAA confirm that that includes drones. This is great news for anyone who has a drone, and for anyone who doesn't want errant bullets falling from the sky, and it's bad news for anyone eager to pump a quadcopter full of lead. From Forbes' John Goglia, who confirmed this with the FAA: According to the FAA "regardless of the situation, shooting at any aircraft -- including unmanned aircraft -- poses a significant safety hazard. An unmanned aircraft hit by gunfire could crash, causing damage to persons or property on the ground, or it could collide with other objects in the air. To reach this justification, the FAA turned to 18 U.S.C. 32, a law that in part expands "United States jurisdiction over aircraft sabotage to include destruction of any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States."

Is this the Steph Curry of robotic basket throwing? The competitors entered the arena, all clattering metal and fidgeting gears. They held balls, ready to hurl into their corner basket, and before them stretched several ball towers. Two years ago the sport didn't exist. Now, the robotic opponents built to play it were assembled and ready to play. The sport, invented by the VEX Robotics, is called "Nothing But Net," and is designed for mostly autonomous vehicles.

We are already aware of machine learning codes disrupting the fashion retail market such as inventory management, virtual reality systems for apparel fitting and most commonly, recommendation systems based on consumer preferences, buying behavior, etc. I myself captured some of these in the post on ML applications in the e-commerce ecosystem, written a few months ago. Today, on a separate note, we'll look at some of the initiatives where machine learning is disrupting the consumer fashion market in some really novel and unique ways. In a way, these models are planning for a future where machines will be able to interpret art the way we do. Determining "Fashionability" Researchers at University of Toronto are working at building a machine learning model to help you improve your "fashionability".

Jill Viles, an Iowa mother, was born with a rare type of muscular dystrophy. The symptoms weren't really noticeable until preschool, when she began to fall while walking. She saw doctors, but they couldn't diagnose her or supply a remedy. When she left for college, she was 5-foot-3 and weighed just 87 pounds. How she would spend her time there turned into part of a remarkable story by David Epstein, published in ProPublica in January.

In a wide-ranging keynote address that included aspirational statements, updates, and announcements, Ginni Rometty, the chairwoman, president, and CEO of the Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, on Tuesday morning shared her vision of cognitive computing with attendees at the World Health Care Congress, being held this week at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Telling her audience that "Healthcare has been central to us for a long time," Rometty framed the broad work that IBM is doing in cognitive computing in terms of what she sees as its potential to change the healthcare industry in three fundamental ways: with regard to "how to reinvent discovery," how to "help change how delivery happens," and how to "transform wellness." Indeed, she said, "Cognitive computing is the future of healthcare," and said that IBM's work in that area, embodied in its development of IBM Watson, its cognitive computing entity, which IBM data scientists and technologists are using to transform knowledge in a broad range of areas. Framing IBM's broad strategic thrust around cognitive computing, Rometty told her audience, "Analytics, cloud, mobile--those are all very important to be a part of the digital society and economy. I always think of digital as foundational; I believe it is disruptive… It is the dawn of a new era. Think of digital business and business intelligence put together, and that will give you cognitive," she said.

In previous articles, we've defined some of the terms being thrown around lately like "machine learning" and "artificial intelligence". These disruptive technologies will soon change the world as we know it. While some pundits predicted that we were years away from a computer that could beat a human expert at "Go", this achievement was recently announced. If a "deep learning" program can now beat a game that has more possible moves than atoms in the known universe, then what's stopping us from unleashing it upon the stock market and making millions? The idea of using computers to trade stocks is hardly new.

Mark Zuckerberg at F8. "I've never met anyone who likes calling businesses." ANALYSIS: Love it or hate it, Messenger is Facebook's most important product. Already, Facebook the social network feels like the clunky backend of the real product, an app where you actually talk to your friends, who barely post anything personal on the site itself any more. It's not as splashy as Snapchat, but there's a reason it consistently beats those apps in engagement and app downloads. Sixty billion messages are sent a day on Messenger.