The Iraqi army is testing its latest weapon in the fight against ISIS, a remote-controlled battle robot. The unmanned vehicle has a heavy machine gun turret for taking out targets picked out by the controller. Called Alrobot, the bullet-proof vehicle is being tested in the Iraqi desert as part of the army's efforts to retake the city of Mosul from ISIS. Iraq is preparing a remote controlled attack vehicle being which experts say could be used in the fight to retake the city of Mosul from Isis. Reports indicate the remote controlled vehicle, called'Alrobot', was designed by two brothers in Baghdad.

By 2025 Australians may well see the application of artificial intelligence in the preparation of tax returns, according to a report by KPMG. The movie "I Robot" starring Will Smith envisaged a future world ruled by robots. By 2025 Australians may well see the application of artificial intelligence in the preparation of tax returns, according to a report by KPMG. The report, 2025: People, economy and the future of tax, suggests a future world in which service industry professionals such as accountants will be replaced by robots and the size of revenue authorities such as the Australian Taxation Office will shrink. "The technological changes ... are likely to mean few mid-skilled jobs will be required," the report says.

You might think of drones as friendly things, like the DJI Phantom you fly yourself or those Amazon drones that could soon be delivering your groceries. Think again when it comes to military drones. An MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle with a 66-foot wingspan can loiter 50,000 feet above the Earth for a day at a time, poised to hit a target with a devastating 3,800 pounds of Hellfire missile payload. But as with all weapons, the awesome firepower of a drone needs to be aimed accurately. "It's less about technology than about strategy, about the way it's deployed," said Gavin Hood, director of drone drama "Eye in the Sky," out now on DVD and Blu-ray.

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

The idea for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's surprising "Super Mario" appearance at the closing ceremony of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics came originally from former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, now president of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics organizing committee. The behind-the-scenes story was disclosed by Toshiro Muto, director-general of the committee. "I hear he (Abe) willingly accepted our request when we told him he was the most suitable person to go on stage to raise publicity for the 2020 Games," Muto said Monday. At the Rio closing ceremony Sunday, Abe popped up from a huge green pipe, dressed as Mario from Nintendo Co.'s popular "Super Mario Bros." video game franchise. Tokyo 2020 organizers said in a statement that the idea came up during a brainstorming session.

The blending of home-based diagnostic platforms with medical care at home is arriving. The Tricorder XPRIZE competition is well underway, with several teams set to compete in the final stages. Leading contenders include CloudDx and Scanadu, a company started at our first Exponential Medicine program, have successfully leveraged crowdfunding to enable their clinical trials. Gale by 19Labs is a next generation "first aid kit meets home health center" (see the below video for a demo) exemplifying how integration of home diagnostics paired with menu-driven (and potentially AI-driven) assistance and optional telemedicine connectivity can provide increased access to home-based diagnosis, triage and management of minor bumps and scrapes and also more complex medical conditions. Interactive and engaging, from coaching on diet and nutrition to reminding you to take your medications or offering psychological support and follow up -- the chatbots are on their way.

UNITED NATIONS The United Nations is ready to deliver aid into Syria's Aleppo, but needs commitments from all parties in the war - not just Russia - to abide by a 48-hour humanitarian truce, the U.N. aid chief, angered by lack of assistance to civilians, said on Monday.

You can get a pretty good idea of a country's wealth by seeing how much it shines at night – just compare the intense brightness of China and South Korea to the dark mass of North Korea that's sandwiched between them. But nighttime lights don't tell you which neighborhoods or villages within a large region are merely poor and which are home to people living in abject poverty. That's the level of detail policymakers need when they decide where to deploy their economic development programs. You could get that detail by sending legions of survey-takers into crowded slums and sparsely populated rural areas. But that would be hugely time-consuming and cost tens of millions of dollars or more.

Iraq built an armed robotic vehicle, according to Baghdad Post, and it could be used to take back a town occupied by ISIS. Based on Defense One's translation of the story, the robot is car-sized and tank-like, equipped with an automatic machine gun and a rocket launcher. It also has four cameras to be able to show operators its field of view, since it's controlled using a laptop from a kilometer away. That distance means its operators still have to be on the battlefield, but at least they can stay hidden and safe while the machine does its job. It's not exactly clear who built this vehicle nicknamed "Alrobot" (that's Arabic for robot).

IBM created a computer chip that works like a brain. Now, Samsung has used it to create a biologically inspired digital eye. The IBM chip, called TrueNorth, is built of 4,096 tiny computing cores that form about a million digital brain cells and 256 million connections. Together they act like the brain's neurons, sending short messages to one another to process data. The design, known as neuromorphic computing, marks a dramatic departure from traditional chips that run software packaged into strict sequences of instructions.