A robot is invading a popular reality TV show in China that tests people's brainpower. The smart, AI-powered bot, Xiaodu, will take on human competitors in complex trials involving face and voice recognition. The AI robot built by search engine giant Baidu is one of the contestants, facing off against four people and other clever computer programs. Baidu first showed off a small version of Xiaodu in 2015. After working on the AI in the interim – and building a giant version just for TV – the gadget now faces its biggest ever battle.

Stephen Hawking was celebrating his birthday early this year by taking in a movie. He turned 75 on Sunday, but the British theoretical physicist went to see "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" in Cambridge, England, on Thursday. The pairing of the movie and the man was somewhat appropriate, what with the celebrated scientist viewing the latest installment of a celebrated science fiction film franchise. The man who was diagnosed more than a half-century ago with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, has achieved much in his life, including beating the odds of survival with his medical condition. Typically given just 10 years to live from the time of diagnosis, Hawking has gone on to live in excess of five times that figure.

Recently, I stumbled upon a very interesting video by one of my favorite music composers -Hans Zimmer. It was an introductory clipping of his online music tutorial -MasterClass, where he was trying to explain to his prospective students how composing music is a fairly simple journey (a modest claim indeed). He described how each musical note is a question and the one that follows it, is the answer. Effectively, the entire composition is nothing else but a seamless conversation turning into a beautiful symphony. Although, on several occasions art does imitate life or perhaps life imitates art? There is no doubt about the fact that we are at the cusp of a revolutionary change in the field of technology.

One of us even yelled. After a long night of going through our list of finalists, our editors have finally settled on our winners for the official Best of CES awards. Below is our list of winners for each category, including our Best of the Best and our People's Choice winner too. Whill's Model M is an electric wheelchair meant to boost mobility for people with disabilities. Powered wheelchairs have been around for decades, but this new version from Whill has a compact, sturdy design that allows people to move across different surfaces independently.

CES is a visual feast of lights, colour, people, costumes - and of course endless gadgets. There are plenty of striking pictures from the show floor. But are any of the exhibitors interested in delighting your ears? Rather like the city of Las Vegas itself, it has its own distinctive beat. The amplified echo of a hundred demonstrations.

As Quartz's time at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas comes to a close, we have rounded up CES's best phones, TVs, concept cars, and miscellany. Rather than being focused on breakout gadgets, this year was especially homogenous, dominated by similar products competing in a few categories: We saw droves of autonomous, electric concept cars, variations on the smart speaker, and half-baked home robots. The best gadgets, listed below, were chosen because they actually managed to differentiate themselves from the herd, or seemed like real, viable products amidst a field of prototypes. Find out what you can do. Even though Amazon wasn't showing off Alexa at its own booth, the digital personal assistant stole the show as the most widely integrated technology: It was hooked up with smart speakers, refrigerators, lamps, robots, cars, and the list goes on.

At least, that could be the case if the fashionista is a customer of one of several services that offer fashion delivered on demand, such as San Francisco-based startup Stitch Fix. Using data analysis software and machine learning to match users with personalized clothing choices, Stitch Fix is ushering the fashion industry into the age of Big Data. For customers who don't pry too closely into the startup's inner workings, the service is intended to feel like magic. "All they're seeing is they order a box of clothes, and presto -- it appears," said Eric Colson, Stitch Fix's chief algorithms officer. Companies in a variety of industries are relying more heavily on data to provide personalized recommendations -- think Netflix using algorithms to find movies or TV shows users might like, or Amazon suggesting additional purchases based on what's in someone's cart.

It was almost one year ago that writer-director-producer-star Nate Parker premiered his Nat Turner biopic at Sundance to a rapturous reception and talk of Oscars. Then Parker's past legal troubles cast a shadow over the release, and the movie faded quickly at the box office. But festival audiences didn't get this one wrong. The movie bluntly depicts the horrors of slavery and uses the details of a famous 1831 slave rebellion to tell a stirring story of radical self-determination, pointing to the larger historical tragedy of American bigotry and human exploitation. Though the low budget and pulpy violence are a hindrance, this is ultimately the kind of bracingly personal project that indie cinema could use more of, with a complex perspective on how slaves experienced the Christian Gospels first as a chain forged by their masters and then as a weapon they could learn to wield.

The contentious presidential campaign was filled with accusations of elitism and bias by the media -- from the news to entertainment. Many supporters of Donald J. Trump saw his victory as a repudiation of the so-called liberal elite. So as 2017 begins, we ask: Is Hollywood representing all Americans? Are Hollywood values out of sync with American values? It's the start of a conversation we'll have all year with Hollywood's creators, consumers and observers.

The contentious presidential campaign was filled with accusations of elitism and bias by the media -- from the news to entertainment. Many supporters of Donald J. Trump saw his victory as a repudiation of the so-called liberal elite. So as 2017 begins, we ask: Is Hollywood representing all Americans? Are Hollywood values out of sync with American values? It's the start of a conversation we'll have all year with Hollywood's creators, consumers and observers. Most of all, we want to hear from you . Is Hollywood out of touch with your America? Here's what our critics and writers have to say: KENNETH TURAN on potent Hollywood visions that helped elect Trump TV's affluent bubble: MARY McNAMARA on Hollywood's reluctance to deal with class issues Fear of the powerful woman: JUSTIN CHANG on working women and men still behaving badly Realistic or cliche?: JEFFREY FLEISHMAN on film's working class men and women Building distrust: LORRAINE ALI on destructive TV portrayals of Muslims and how TV ...