A few weeks ago, an anonymous website arrived with a countdown clock, one set to hit zero on May 31. The domain, Prophets of Rage, is named for a Public Enemy song, and arrived with a red-and-black militaristic logo. Prophets of Rage also started posting oblique Instagram photos and embeds of Public Enemy and Cypress Hill tracks. It did all this while referencing a hashtag: #takethepowerback. This wasn't a political movement or an armed insurrection.

Stock photo giant Shutterstock is boosting its artificial intelligence (AI) credentials today with the launch of a new reverse image search feature within its iOS app. The New York-based company offers more than 80 million images for bloggers and media outlets, but keyword searches aren't always the most effective way to find images relevant to a story. If you want to search for photos that are similar to ones you already have in your possession, or if you want to find alternative photos based on the shapes, mood, color scheme, and general mise en scène around you, reverse image search comes into play. You can search Shutterstock by using the camera on your iPhone or the photos on your camera roll to find similar images. The launch comes three months after Shutterstock first introduced the feature through its desktop version, though extending it to smartphones does feel like a natural move, given that smartphones are cameras in their own right. "When we unveiled Reverse Image Search this past spring, we knew that it was a perfect fit for our mobile application -- it's arguably one of the best use cases for computer vision technology, in general," said Shutterstock CEO and founder Jon Oringer.

Late Night host Seth Meyers sits down with USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham to talk tech--why Facebook is funnier than Twitter, his thoughts on drones and hyperloops, his home app of choice and why he won't buy the Amazon Echo.

IF you were to mention artificial intelligence (AI) or bots in a conversation about science with the average person, they would consider these to be more science fiction than accepted science. The average person would be painfully wrong, as these concepts have seen measured success in the past half-century. However, their expected impact on our lives has not met the demands of the general public who envision more than it is capable of just yet, but the science in support of it grows each day. Artificial intelligence by the cinematic definition is a complete conscious entity unnaturally created through science. Similarly, bots are defined in public opinion by characters such as the Nanny robot in the cartoon The Jetsons. Fundamentally, AI is the creation of a programme or machine that can exhibit a cognitive function or effectively think for itself.

It could finally be the home robot you've dreamed - capable of keeping the kids quiet and doing the shopping. Asus today revealed a Zenbo, a 599 home robot it hopes will help bring robotics into the home. Chairman Jonney Shih pledged the firm will'enable robotic computing for every household.' Asus chairman Jonney Shih pledged the firm will'enable robotic computing for every household.' The robot was unveiled at Computex 2016 alongside a new range of mobile phones.

How do we stop intelligent machines from taking over the world and enslaving us all? That's the radical suggestion of Patrick Levy Rosenthal, founder and chief executive of Emoshape, a tech firm that has developed a computer chip that can synthesise 12 human emotions. "It's logical to conclude that autonomous machines made of electricity and metal will eventually see us as their main competitors for those resources, and try to take control," he says. This is the dystopian vision of artificial intelligence (AI) run amok that luminaries such as physicist Prof Stephen Hawking, and tech entrepreneurs Bill Gates and Elon Musk, worry about. But Mr Rosenthal believes this nightmare scenario will be avoided if we create machines that can empathise.

Author here: I'm happy to answer any thoughts/questions folks have here.

At the top of the bustling consumer drone marketplace, two big names have been battling (sometimes litigiously) for dominance. DJI popularized drone flying as a hobby with its Phantom line, but lately, Yuneec has been whittling into DJI's marketshare with its competing Typhoon line. Both company's flagship quadcopters are equipped with excellent video cameras, both are accessibly priced, and both have autonomous and safety-minded features that make flying easy for inexperienced pilots. Hexacopter design offers added stability in flight. Automated flight modes and integrated camera/flight controls mean a single pilot can still do everything themselves.

Set mostly in the Earth-like world of Azeroth, Warcraft follows the premise set forth by Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, the franchise's first release for PC in late 1994. Having destroyed their own planet with dark magic, the Orcs attempt to take over the world of humans, setting off an epic clash of clans. What follows onscreen is a live action/CGI mashup visually reminiscent of Avatar that opts for a kinetic pace of nonstop battles over deep character study and plodding narrative. Jones wasn't originally attached to this Warcraft adaption -- Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) was. But, having been a longtime fan, he jumped at the chance to pick up where Raimi left off and build a film that lets audiences decide who the good guys are. In advance of the film's US release June 10th, I sat down with Jones to talk about his love of PC gaming, how spaghetti Westerns informed Warcraft's battles and his early sci-fi and fantasy inspirations.

Taiwan's Asus has unveiled what it says is the first "affordable" household robot.