A professor of musical technology at Georgia Tech, Gil Weinberg, enlisted the support of graduate student Scott Driscoll to create Haile -- the first truly robotic musician. In this way, he became a sort of Geppetto creating his musical Pinocchio. "Computers have been playing music for 50 years," Driscoll said. "But we wanted to create something that didn't just play back what it heard, but play off it, too." Think of Haile (pronounced Hi-lee) as a robotic partner in the percussion form of dueling banjos.

To hold its own against digital assistants from Google, Microsoft and Amazon, Siri needs an IQ boost. Last month, Google took the stage in Mountain View, California, to show off improvements to its digital voice assistant. Its signature ability is to have a conversation with it like you would a normal person. You can ask "Google Assistant" what's on your schedule and then have it text the person you're meeting to say you'll be late. Google remembers your first question, so you don't have to start over with a new command.

It's been 25 years since "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" gave us nightmares about Skynet and liquid-metal assassin robots, and we're still freaking out about artificial intelligence breaking bad. Now Australian researchers are helping to resurrect fears of the movie's spooky T-1000 killing machine by developing self-propelled liquid metals reminiscent of the ones that made up its body. Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne plan to create elastic electronic components and soft-circuit systems that act more like live cells. For the most part, our modern electronics use fixed metallic tracks to create circuits that are stuck in a single configuration. This is why you can't simply ask Siri to split and rearrange your iPhone into four smaller iPods to share your music with friends.

Apple's newest version of its mobile software iOS becomes available today for a public test drive. Is the beta for iOS 10 worth it? I've been using it for a long weekend, with a preloaded version on an iPhone 6S provided by Apple. As always, going with a beta OS is a bit of a risky journey on your everyday phone -- if you're curious, read Apple's FAQ and sign up, but I recommend you do it on a secondary device. That being said, it feels largely familiar at first, or second, or third use.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, AT&T teamed up with New York University's Ability Lab to challenge app developers to use their network and technology to make life easier for people with disabilities. Together they launched the Connect Ability Challenge, designed to spur innovation for people with physical, social, emotional and cognitive disabilities. Winners of the contest, which saw a total of 63 submissions, were announced Monday. In total, AT&T awarded $100,000 in cash. That included a $25,000 grand prize for Kinesic Mouse, software that uses Intel's Real Sense Web camera to detect facial expressions and head rotations, enabling people to operate their personal computers hands-free.

The trailer is equipped with computers, chairs, video cameras, generators, lasers, nuts and bolts, and two items that turn out to be crucial: garbage bags and toilet paper. What's missing is one female coupler. Robotics Institute research engineer James P. Teza performs some last-minute surgery, soldering two cables together, and Groundhog drives down the ramp out of the trailer, approaching the mouth of the mine. Remaining inside the trailer are the computers that will display the maps and images Groundhog sends back from its journey, the same visuals that will be exhibited at the conference in Charleston before and during Whittaker's talk. Using the laser-generated maps as his guide, Baker steers the robot using the computer's arrow keys to turn right or left and the home key to go straight ahead.

The subscription-based website for finding long-lost relatives already has 6.7 billion historical records and 4.8 billion people named in family trees on its website. But now it's adding the 1940 United States Federal Census, which the federal government will release on Monday. The National Archives has turned the 1940 census paperwork into more than 3.8 million digital images. The online archive--being released after a 72-year waiting period--will be a gold mine for people just beginning to compile their family history, though it will become easier to use once the images are indexed. The company learned its lesson two years ago from a huge spike in website traffic during the TV show "Who Do You Think You Are," in which celebrities such as Sarah Jessica Parker discover clues about their ancestors.

Apple just bought itself a 3D sensor company, a move that has some intriguing possibilities. This past weekend, Apple confirmed its acquisition of PrimeSense, an Israel-based company best known for its work on the original Microsoft Kinect, a gaming accessory that lets you control on-screen action by moving your body. "I think it's very big news," says David Fleet, a computer science professor at the University of Toronto. Fleet studies machine vision systems and cites the success of the Kinect as a "big win," adding "I think many more applications are on the horizon." PrimeSense's 3D sensing system uses an infrared emitter to shoot out beams of invisible infrared light.

Is there a formula for writing a hit musical? And if so, could a computer do it? That's one of the questions the team behind the new musical Beyond the Fence hopes to answer. The musical, making its debut in London in February, was written almost entirely by computers. CBC technology columnist Dan Misener answers some questions on what this means for the intersection of science and art.

It sounds like the premise of a science fiction movie, but researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory are teaching computers to see into the future. They've created an algorithm that can forecast hugs, kisses, and high-fives -- before they even happen. CBC Radio technology columnist Dan Misener explains how computers are getting better and better at understanding and anticipating human behaviour. They've developed an algorithm that can look at a photo of two people and predict what's going to happen next. For instance, if I showed this software a photo of you and me meeting on the street, it can anticipate whether we're likely to hug, kiss, shake hands or high-five.