It's not the first time a product inspired by anime has been brought to life in the real world. However, this product is sure to attract more international Japanese anime fans than ever. Japan startup Cerevo, which has invented a number of smart home electronics and IoT products, announced an eighth-factor model of the multi-legged tank Tachikoma, a popular character from the animated series Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. They have begun accepting pre-orders on their website. The price is $1,799 and shipment is scheduled for June of this year.

After numerous rejections, Apple finally decided to allow a drone-strike notification app back on the App Store Tuesday after it was pulled in 2015 -- and then took it down again hours later. The app called Metadata, created by Josh Begley from The Intercept, sends a notification every time a U.S. drone strike is reported in the news. Begley, created the app five years ago and called it Drone . He said Tuesday in an article for The Intercept Apple rejected the app three times for "excessively objectionable or crude content." However, the app didn't include graphic images or video and only aggregated news about drone strikes. "If anything about the app is'excessively objectionable or crude,' perhaps it's the airstrikes themselves," wrote Begley.

When Visabot went live last November, the Facebook Messenger-based artificial intelligence attempted to simplify the US visa application process and help many people skip the fees associated with a visit to an immigration lawyer. At the time, however, Visabot's conversational approach only supported two types of visas for travel or "exceptional individuals." Now, as promised, Visabot support is adding support for the H-1B visa transfers and applications that many Silicon Valley companies rely on for attracting talent. As Buzzfeed reports, the H-1B applications won't be supported by Visabot in time for this year's April 3 deadline, but they will be available soon. In the meantime, Visabot does support H-1B transfers -- which should give workers more mobility and prevent them from getting locked into the company that sponsored their visa in the first place.

The country is already selling truck-mounted laser cannons: the Low Altitude Guard and the higher powered Silent Hunter. The Silent Hunter uses a laser to zap ground and air targets up to 4 kilometers (about 2.5 miles) away, and at closer range is powerful enough to threaten lightly armored vehicles. The government used the Silent Hunter to protect the September 2016 G20 summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Such "hard kill" systems would be necessary to fight future autonomous drone threats, which won't be so easily disabled by jammed communications. The current use of drones by militaries and everyday citizens, coupled with the promise of AI-enhanced and networked platforms, suggests that we will see more technology and incidents of the kind shown off at Wuhan.

Not too long ago, robots were considered a possible but surreal feature of a distant future. But take stock for a moment and it's clear that artificial intelligence and machine learning has already pervaded our lives. From high-frequency trading in financial markets to customised playlists on Spotify, machines are able to receive, process and act upon data intelligently. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are at the forefront of drastic change, and the world's largest technology companies, from Google and Amazon to Dyson, are focussed on harnessing artificial intelligence to revolutionise business and consumer services. Recognising its sea-change capabilities, the British Government is also committed to advancing artificial intelligence, predicting it could add £654 billion to the UK economy by 2035.

This clarification followed an American Civil Liberties Union report late last year saying that a company called Geofeedia was marketing its social media–monitoring product to U.S. law enforcement as a tool to keep an eye on protests. In an email from Geofeedia to a potential police department client, which the ACLU obtained, the company boasts about how its special access to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter data could be used to monitor protests. Geofeedia said that its system allowed it to have "covered Ferguson/Mike Brown nationally with great success." It could access a vast amount of public posts, potentially in real time, allowing for the company to isolate posts and users in specific protest locations. In a case study document, the company also states that during the 2015 protests in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, police officers were able to run facial recognition technology on social media photos to identify individuals with outstanding warrants and "arrest them directly from the crowds."

Uber is putting the brakes on its driverless car pilot program after one of its self-driving cars got into a high speed crash in Arizona. Sean Dowling (@seandowlingtv) has more. Uber is scaling back its expansion plans in Oakland, Calif. SAN FRANCISCO -- Uber's first ever diversity report confirms that the embattled ride-hailing company faces the same workforce challenges as its tech world peers. While the company does employ a good number of women, African-Americans and Hispanics, those groups are not well represented among Uber's top leadership and technical positions and instead skew heavily toward the company's preponderance of support and operational roles.

New research and analysis from Federal Reserve economists reveal a problem of mismatches between workers, salaries and productivity, but doesn't identify and discuss the structural cause of the problem: counterproductive recruiting, writes Ask the Headhunter columnist Nick Corcodilos. Nick Corcodilos started headhunting in Silicon Valley in 1979 and has answered over 30,000 questions from the Ask The Headhunter community. In this special Making Sen$e edition of Ask The Headhunter, Nick shares insider advice and contrarian methods about winning and keeping the right job, on one condition: that you, dear Making Sense reader, send Nick your questions about your personal challenges with job hunting, interviewing, networking, resumes, job boards or salary negotiations. No guarantees -- just a promise to do his best to offer useful advice. Recent research by the Federal Reserve suggest that switching jobs -- and probably employers -- is the best way to boost your salary and your career.

Uber is putting the brakes on its driverless car pilot program after one of its self-driving cars got into a high speed crash in Arizona. Sean Dowling (@seandowlingtv) has more. Uber is scaling back its expansion plans in Oakland, Calif. SAN FRANCISCO -- Uber's first ever diversity report confirms that the embattled ride-hailing company faces the same workforce challenges as its tech world peers. While the company does employ a good number of women, African-Americans and Hispanics, those groups are not well represented among Uber's top leadership and technical positions and instead skew heavily toward the company's preponderance of support and administrative roles.

The White House was placed on lockdown Tuesday morning after a man reportedly approached the grounds and claimed to have a bomb. The Secret Service announced on its official Twitter feed that it was investigating a suspicious package on the White House's North Lawn, while reporters were cordoned off in the Press Room. The Secret Service confirmed it had a suspect in custody and that its probe was ongoing. The so far unidentified man, who had a warrant out for his arrest before Tuesday's incident, was taken into custody. The Secret Service reportedly deployed a "bomb robot" to investigate the package and set up a security perimeter.