The last time Microsoft released a "bot" onto the internet, it quickly became a Donald Trump-supporting, Nazi-sympathising, conspiracy theory-believing racist . It has unveiled a website called CaptionBo t, which uses clever algorithms to recognise images. Users are asked to give a star rating to reflect its accuracy, letting the bot learn from its mistakes and improve its skills. "I can understand the content of any image and I'll try to describe it as well as any human," the bot said. If you look at the tweets above, you'll see what happened to Tay, Microsoft's last creation. It was supposed to be a "chill" machine, but ended up getting tricked into spouting racist rhetoric, praising Hitler and calling for Mexico to build a wall to keep migrants out of the US.

Now that the 2016 edition of the interactive festival is a thing of the past, here are the main ideas and trends that will shape both technology and the media in the coming years. On the one hand, we are told that things evolve fast and that the future is already upon us; on the other hand, there are claims that this digital revolution is just barely beginning and that there is a lot more to come. What's counts most may not be so much being able to differentiate sociology and foresight but instead to confront one's own ideas and take in the ideas of others. Multiplatform is one of the major trends that made a very prominent mark on this year's festival. It's a question of designing one's content to suit each broadcasting platform instead of adapting one's preformatted content to the platforms in question.

And now, the technology is being harnessed to streamline the United States Air Force acquisitions process -- an effort that will be undertaken by a small Lawrence business. Lawrence-based KalScott Engineering Inc. announced Wednesday it was selected to finish building artificial intelligence, called SOPHIA, for the Air Force. KalScott, owned by two Kansas University graduates, was chosen last summer to do some preliminary work training a supercomputer -- or "cognitive thinking machine" -- that could understand Defense Department contracting rules and answer questions about them audibly. Suman Saripalli, a co-owner of KalScott, said Wednesday the firm received the final go-ahead to complete the work. The announcement came with 750,000 more in funding. The finished product -- which will act as a "very intelligent assistant," Saripalli said -- is intended to help businesses and government employees navigate the Air Force's complex procurement process, which has been found to discourage small and innovative businesses from partnering with the federal government.

A United Nations meeting this week in Geneva is debating the future of autonomous weapons--the controversial weapons systems capable of selecting and engaging targets without human intervention. Delegates from about 90 countries are discussing the far-reaching technical, legal, and ethical questions that these robotic weapons raise, and at the end of the week-long meeting they hope to agree on what to do next. For a group of arms control activists that has long been concerned about autonomous weapons, the next step countries should take is clear: they should ban these weapons. That's the goal of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a coalition of non-governmental organizations that was formed in late 2012 and whose steering committee includes groups like Human Rights Watch and the International Committee for Robot Arms Control. On Monday Human Rights Watch released a memorandum to the delegates in Geneva calling for countries to "adopt an international, legally binding instrument that prohibits the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons."

Microsoft wants to join the rest of the software giants in the AI game, but it just keeps striking out. Weeks ago the firm's lovable teen chatbot turned into a Hitler supporting racists and this week its CaptionBot isn't living up to its potential. CaptionBot, which analyzes pictures in order to formulate captions, has been spot on with some results, but horridly wrong for others – it thought the First Lady Michelle Obama was a cell phone. Weeks ago the firm's lovable teen chatbot turned into a Hitler supporting racists and this week its CaptionBot isn't living up to its name. This technology combines three different services to process images and write descriptive captions – and sometimes includes an appropriate emoji.

Anything sounds weighty when uttered by the President of the United States, which is why a new internet text-to-speech app called "Talk Obama to Me" is such fun. All you have to do is input whatever text you want to make the President himself read it back. According to developer and Stanford Linguistics PhD candidate Ed King, the program is a "video speech synthesizer that automatically chops up video of Barack Obama and puts it in order, so that he says whatever you want him to."

No one knows for certain what will happen if an errant drone crashes into a passenger jet. Who wants to find out for sure? Better to keep drones and planes well out of each other's way. One important step is for Congress to pass the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that's working its way through the Senate this month. Among many other things, the bill adopts some of the strictest regulations for commercial and hobby drones yet. It's way past time to start getting a handle on these flying robots.

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

Anticipating whether the car in front is going to take the next left or is slowing down is a fundamental part of driving, and key to not totalling your car. While keeping your eyes ahead should be second nature to those on the road, this most basic of tasks is still a challenge for driverless cars. But details have emerged of a patent filed by Google for its autonomous vehicles to detect and track brake and indicator lights of other cars on the road. Google has filed a patent for its autonomous vehicles to detect and track brake and indicator lights of other cars on the road. This will enable the driverless cars to better anticipate the movements of cars on the road. The technology would enable the driverless cars to anticipate the movements of cars on the road ahead using a forward-facing camera.

The world's militaries are close enough to wielding weapons that decide on their own whether to kill -- called Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems -- that the United Nations this week gathered a select few experts, including an ASU researcher, to separate fact from fear of robot overlords. Dr. Heather Roff, research scientist with ASU's Global Security Initiative and current Oxford senior research fellow, is testifying on the unintended risks of such weapons, and where many autonomous or semi-autonomous weapons currently exist. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence and human control. Dr. Heather Roff, researcher at ASU's Global Security Initiative, testifies at a UN meeting of experts to consider lethal autonomous weapons. Dr. Roff's testimony focuses on unintentional risks of autonomous weapons systems, including artificial intelligence and human control.