George Orwell's novel "1984" is hitting the bestseller lists again, having been moved in bookstores from the "dystopian science fiction" shelves to the "current affairs" section. But today let's talk about another iteration of "1984": Ridley Scott's television commercial that year for the then-new Apple Macintosh. As we reported in 2014, on its 30th anniversary, the "1984" ad aired on national television in its full 60-second form only once, during Super Bowl XVIII on Jan. 22, 1984. It became a legend almost immediately. More to the point, it established Super Bowl TV commercials as a thing, garnering almost as much PR attention as the game itself.

You might think it would be easy for political appointees to rally against something as unpopular as the monthly fees that cable and satellite TV services charge for their converter boxes -- particularly when federal law requires them to do something about it. Sadly, the opposite has been true for the Federal Communications Commission, which was instructed by Congress in 1996 to develop rules that would end the effective monopoly that pay-TV providers hold over set-top boxes. Years of work produced a klugey and poorly supported "CableCard" system to allow devices to perform the functions of a cable set-top, but it certainly hasn't produced the explosion of choices that lawmakers had hoped to create. Good luck finding a TV set with a CableCard slot. In the latest turn of the screw, new Chairman Ajit Pai put the commission's most recent (and highly controversial) set-top box proposal in limbo, which in this case appears to be a way station on the road to eternal damnation. That proposal would have required pay-TV providers to make their services available through a standardized app that could run on a variety of major consumer-electronics devices.

Sky and Discovery have reached a last-minute deal to keep the likes of Animal Planet and Eurosport on Sky TV. However, they unexpectedly reached an agreement shortly before the 31 January deadline passed, meaning Sky customers still have access to Animal Planet, Discovery HD, Discovery History, Discovery Home & Health, Discovery Science, Discovery Shed, Discovery Turbo, DMAX, Eurosport1, Eurosport2, Investigation Discovery, Quest and TLC. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London ...

Hunted The Hunters set up a fake online dating profile in an attempt to lure two out of hiding. Showtime at the Apollo Steve Harvey hosts a new reboot of the classic talent showcase featuring Chaka Khan, T.I. with Meek Mill, Quavo and RaRa, Mike Epps and comic Gabriel Iglesias. Spy in the Wild: A Nature Miniseries This new documentary features footage from cameras disguised as wildlife that are able to capture candid and closeup footage of wild animals including wild dogs, elephants and monkeys. Star Star, Simone and Alex (Jude Demorest, Brittany O'Grady, Ryan Destiny) are invited to perform at a charity event in this new episode. NOVA In a new episode "Search for the Super Battery," host David Pogue investigates how batteries work and what the future may hold for technical innovation.

Plex has news, and it is great for cord-cutters out there. The media server company is finally bringing news video streaming to its platform, all thanks to its latest acquisition. The move comes a few months after the company introduced Plex DVR. On Tuesday, Plex announced its acquisition of Watchup on its official blog. "It gives us great pleasure to announce that we've acquired the streaming news service."

When I think about what makes a fun VR experience, I constantly come back to the work of Tyler Hurd: lead artist on a batch of experiences that can best be described as smile machines. His beat-heavy bits basically force participants to dance like they just don't care (a trick aided by the fact that eye-covering VR headsets allow you to pretend that you're dancing like nobody is watching). When I first came across his work at the Tribeca Film Festival, where his VR video the Future Islands song Old Friend made a well-received appearance, I spent a fair chunk of time simply watching people glow with joy as they danced with abandon. This January at the Sundance Film Festival, I witnessed a similar stream of smiles with his newest experience, Chocolate, which he produced with Viacom Next. Towards the end of Sundance, I caught up with Tyler to talk about his new experience, and what the secret is to making VR that people seem to really, really like.

Rest assured that despite the constant Matrix-like scenarios, we're actually big fans of AI technology. But we're also sci-fi geeks, so we have to get it out somewhere. Earlier this year, I wrote about the basics of how machine learning works, and how we've been using it to train computer programs to beat us at the Chinese strategy game, Go. You'd think that teaching a computer how to think strategically and crush their opponents beneath their cybernetic heel would be enough for researchers, but they've decided to raise the bar again. Now, they want to teach computers just what it is that humans fear.

Thank goodness for live chat. If you're anything like me, you look back at the days of corded phones and 1-800 numbers with anything but fondness. But as you're chatting with a customer service agent on Facebook Messenger to see if you can change the shipping address on your recent order, sometimes it's tempting to ask, am I really talking to a human? Or is this kind, speedy agent really just a robot in disguise? Believe it or not, this question is older than you might think.

Robots threaten the jobs of many hard-working people. But porn stars will be among the first hit by the robot revolution. Sex technology, such as interactive and virtual reality porn is becoming cheaper and more socially acceptable. And super-realistic computer generated'actors' could replace the porn industry's need for real-life stars. Realistic computer generated'actors' could replace the industry's need for real-life stars.

Androids are robots or artificial people that are meant to resemble humans. They are meant to look like us and behave like us and the technology is advancing every day. In the Star Wars galaxy Droids are a part of everyday life. They are mechanical beings that possess artificial intelligence and are used for all kinds of purposes from communicating with vaporators to waging galactic warfare. At the time the Death Star was attacking the Rebel Base on Yavin, Droids had been in use for over 5000 years.