Artificial intelligence and robots are hot topics right now, but will we ever get to the stage we saw 50 years ago on "The Jetsons," where your typical household could have a robotic maid named Rosie? Robotics pioneer David Hanson says yes, and he thinks it'll take less than 50 more years. That's the prediction he delivered on Wednesday during a Skype-enabled panel presentation on the future of AI and robotics in Seattle, sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Northwest. A veteran of Disney's imagineering operation, Hanson has produced custom-made robot heads that are capable of eerily humanlike expressions. Now Hanson has relocated to Hong Kong, where he's gearing up to unveil a line of production-model robots that take advantage of recent AI advances as well as the toymaking prowess of the Pearl River Delta.

The latest in the drumbeat of news about artificial intelligence advances came from Seoul, where machine learning algorithms recently beat the world champion in a game of "Go." A Scientific American article explains why this is so impressive, but the implications run far deeper than a match of wits between man and machine. Soon, our workplaces will be transformed by artificial intelligence, with a wide range of processes and roles becoming redefined as some of the tasks comprising them are taken over by machines. Travelers are seeing early signs of this phenomenon. For example, in many US airports these days, instead of standing in a long line to have an immigration officer eyeball us, we scan our passport at a self-service kiosk, answer a few questions, get photographed, and then hand our photo receipt and passport to an agent who quickly verifies that everything checks out.

Search engines on large e-commerce sites often spit up a lot of results, which is great if you want to browse, but otherwise annoying. Twiggle thinks it has the solution. Internet conglomerate Naspers agrees, because it has led the Tel Aviv-based startup's 12.5 million Series A. Yahoo Japan, State of Mind Ventures (a returning investor), and Sir Ronald Cohen also participated in the round. Twiggle, which has raised 14.7 million so far, will launch on several e-commerce sites in August. It hasn't revealed who its clients are yet, but they will include other Naspers portfolio companies.

While the 5-person team won the scholarship prize, the top-scoring player in the league is from another team in California: a 10-year-old kid named Julien Wiltshire. He was also the first season's top scoring player and even took home a 5,000 scholarship prize. This time, he defeated almost 2,000 other gamers -- twice the number of the first season's participants -- earning him the right to brag that he's now a two-time Minecraft champ. He might also be gearing up for the third season starting on April 30th, so if your younglings want to join, it may be wise to start training them pronto.

Ever wished you could order Taco Bell for everyone in the office using a simple chat bot? No? Well, you'll soon be able to it anyway. Taco Bell has blessed the world with TacoBot, a chatbot for the popular workplace chat app Slack. Tell TacoBot what you want, and it keeps a running tally of your order, just like that screen at the drive-thru. When you're done, pay through TacoBot and pick up your order at the Nearest Participating Taco Bell.

The move to Phoenix is the second new area for Google this year. In February, it began testing in Kirkland, Washington, which is significantly wetter than previous locations. Those previous locations were in California and Texas, though, so that's not saying much -- Kirkland is still dryer than the US average for inches of rainfall per year. It's suggested that, in addition to providing a new set of environmental challenges for self-driving cars, Arizona is potentially more open to the testing than California. Google's home state recently proposed new rules that would require a wheel, pedals and a driver to be in self-driving cars -- all things that are not present in Google's current prototype.

In a decision announced Thursday, March 10, 2016, Yahoo set up a battle for control of its board by appointing two directors likely to further agitate an activist shareholder threatening to lead an investor mutiny aimed at ousting Mayer unless she bows to demands to sell the companyís Internet operations. NEW YORK–The financial meltdown at Yahoo has gotten "increasingly dire." That's what veteran Silicon Valley journalist Kara Swisher reported in Re/code after examining disclosure documents inside the sale "book" Yahoo's bankers have shown to prospective bidders. Swisher writes that the "collective issues depicted in the book has many nervous about bidding." Among the reveals: Yahoo is in a "serious free fall."

"The new trend is to describe a traditional business and then add the words'AI.' A few years back, it was'social'." But in certain sectors, adding AI into the mix indeed means revolutionizing it. Perhaps no more is this change happening than in the banking sector. The recent PAPIs Connect brought together the academics and business people alike to talk about how predictive APIs are making artificial intelligence, machine learning and even deep learning more accessible.

In Melbourne, Australia, Stefan Harrer is running an artificial software brain atop an artificial hardware brain in an effort to analyze a brain that isn't artificial at all. Ultimately, he and his colleagues envision merging these three brains together so that the artificial can augment the real. Harrer is an IBM researcher stationed at the company's Australian research lab. Together with neurologists at the University of Melbourne, he's developing a computing system that can analyze your brain waves in an effort to predict epileptic seizures. 'Our aim is to replace broken neural systems with machines.'

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