Awesome Con is a place to celebrate comic books, movies, television, toys, and games – and beginning this year, science and technology are joining the party at the inaugural Awesome Con Science Fair presented by Science Channel! Maybe you wanna learn more about cloning. You're probably terrified of robotics. The worlds of science fiction and science fact overlap, and we're excited to now expand Awesome Con and create new awareness, advocacy, and interest in all things nerdy, techy, wonky, and smart! The Awesome Con Science Fair presented by Science Channel's participants include Science Channel (obviously), NASA, the Smithsonian, the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, the Society for Science and the Public, and Nerd Nite!

Unlike robotic AIs that are being built to emulate the human brain, UNU works with existing human intelligence instead of replicating it. The platform, which is open to the public, allows a group of people to converge on an answer in real time. While a swarm of seven predicted the Oscars, the Derby decision came from 20 people. For the AMA at 1 p.m. EDT today, the group that will make political predictions is expected to range from 100 to 200 people. The participants will come from UNU's user base, which has already answered fantasy football and cooking queries.

I'm going to dispense with any introduction here, because the meat of this story is amazing and interesting in many different ways, so we'll jump right in. Blade Runner, the film based off of Philip K. Dick's classic novel, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, is a film classic in every last sense of the word. If you haven't seen it, you absolutely should. Also, if you indeed haven't seen the movie, you've watched at least one less film than an amazing artificial intelligence software developed by Terrance Broad, a London-based researcher working on his advanced degree in creative computing. Broad's goal was to apply "deep learning" -- a fundamental piece of artificial intelligence that uses algorithmic machine learning -- to video; he wanted to discover what kinds of creations a rudimentary form of AI might be able to generate when it was "taught" to understand real video data.

What if technology – on its own – could be capable of both producing and delivering news to the reader in the exact way he or she wants it? The future of news is no longer the internet of things or increased automation, as these phenomena have already infiltrated our daily lives. The future of news is artificial intelligence (AI). Technology has shifted control from the media producer to the media consumer. As digital users, we can set parameters in our news feed, follow publications and media genres through our social media streams and subscribe to the email newsletters and updates that we want to receive in our inboxes. We get the information we want in the way that we want it.

In the world of ASUS' TV ad, WiFi connections are strong and acting skills are weak. We're shown how Zenbo can detect faces and take photos and videos through voice commands. It will also respond to questions. It gives reminders for medication or upcoming events, has built-in speakers for streaming music, and can even connect with smart home devices like air conditioners, lighting, TVs and connected door locks. And yet, smartphones and tablets can already do all of that.

Can artificial intelligence be used to create compelling human art? That's a question which Google's Magenta team, a group researchers from the Silicon Valley giant's Brain Team, looks to answer, using Google's open-source TensorFlow AI engine. So far, the signs point to yes: The team has now released the first piece of music been written via machine learning, a simple tune that was composed without any human hands. Related: Take the Millennium Falcon for a spin: New'Star Wars' vinyl features embedded holograms The first bit of music released by the Magenta team is a 90-second clip of piano, which had a drum beat added by researchers to give context to the computer's harmonic rhythm. It's an interesting amalgamation of sounds: simple, but full of complex musical ideas like repeated phrasing, form, and feeling.

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

A confident Donald Trump is in the final stages of campaigning for re-election. It's the day before the country heads to the polls, and Trump is courting the vote in no fewer than 20 states. Using holograms, he's able to speak everywhere at once. Keeping, as we all knew he would, to his 2016 promise to run for office, the rapper hasn't bothered to leave the house. Instead, a fleet of drones is swarming across the country, dropping "Yes we Kanye!" to confused, slightly scared voters below.

Most of us have developed our ideas of what artificial intelligence should look like from movies, television shows, and popular novels. When thinking about AI, our minds flash to images of robots masquerading as humans, as we saw in Spielberg's film of the same name, or countless other films such as Blade Runner and the Alien movies. Or, we conjure up ideas of computers that think and speak like humans, such as the one who so famously told Dave "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" in the film 2001. Over the years, in our real life experiences, we've become accustomed to computers and other devices asking us questions, qualifying us via complicated phone menus, or helping us to find quick facts with the aid of assistants like Siri. We realize that the AI found in Hollywood is years away, and are realistic about the technology we have today and how it's progressing. After all, making a piece of software that can think and act exactly like a human is a pretty tall order.

This is how it starts. First announced at Moogfest, Magenta is a machine learning project from the Google Brain team. Its aim is to "create compelling art and music," according to an introductory blog post. Its other goal is to connect artists, coders and machine learning researchers, allowing them to collaborate. The biggest challenge with machine-generated music and art, according to the blog post, is "combining generation, attention and surprise to tell a compelling story."