It's one of the most iconic scenes in all of science fiction: In the original Star Wars, the droid R2-D2 projects a 3-D image onto a tabletop. Princess Leia, projected as a tiny hologram, desperately asks the semi-retired Jedi master Ben Kenobi for assistance: "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Still brings the chills, doesn't it? The free-standing 3-D hologram has been a staple of science fiction for decades. But like the phaser and the flying car, it's one of those sci-fi dreams that has yet to become reality. We're getting awfully close, though. Earlier this summer, researchers at the University of Rochester unveiled the latest projection system to approximate Princess Leia's immortal plea. Dubbed the Illumyn 3-D Display, the system uses laser projection to generate actual 3-D holograms in midair -- no projection surface, no virtual reality goggles, no 3-D glasses, no augmented reality tricks. There is a catch, however: Holograms projected by the Illumyn system are contained within a glass sphere filled with heated Cesium vapor, an elemental metal that's particularly good at emitting light. The Illumyn system works by crossing two laser beams -- invisible to the human eye -- at a specific point within the sphere. When the crossed beams hit the cesium vapor, various atomic-scale shenanigans produce a sky-blue light that is emitted outward in all directions. The crossed beams only produce a single point of light, but by moving the laser coordinates around at incredible speed, the Illumyn sphere can essentially draw 3-D objects in thin air -- well, thin cesium vapors. The image never actually exists at any one time, but the system fires up each dot so fast that the human eye sees the programmed image. The process is actually a kind of high-tech update on the old cathode-ray tube television, says Curtis Broadbent, research associate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester and co-developer of the Illumyn system. "CRT televisions used a raster-scan technology," Broadbent says. "The electron gun sends a stream of electrons to the fluorescent screen and the beam of electrons are deflected to sequentially hit every pixel on the fluorescent screen.

In this era, the time of the Fourth Industrial revolution, innovation and development of new ways to look at the world are growing so fast, lagging one step means you are lightyears behind. In order to extend the capabilities of the current workforce and make it more digital, artificial intelligence will and must be integrated in the daily operations of companies, resulting in an economy of Intelligent Enterprises. The Fourth Industrial revolution brings us all kinds of great innovation, with huge impact on everyday life. Already you see that the combination of increased computing strength and artificial intelligence, brings changes to things we do every day. Simple examples are Netflix's'what you watched before', and'what other people with similar preferences watched', based on that, Netflix recommends things you will probably like.

You can already use your voice to control your Spotify account with Google Home. The connected speaker also works with Chromecast as a sort of voice-enabled remote control for Netflix. Now Google Home can do the same thing with your CBS All Access and CW TV accounts. Which means, of course, that you can use your voice to watch the upcoming Star Trek Discovery or the latest episode of The Flash with Chromecast built-in. The CBS All Access addition was first spotted by Android Police.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reinventing the creative landscape for marketers. One big leap: Brands are no longer merely seen as objects, but entities with personalities that can interact dynamically with people, according to Winston Binch, chief digital officer for Deutsch North America, the ad agency behind Taco Bell's award-winning taco-ordering chatbot, the Tacobot. Binch spoke to Catharine Hays, executive director of the Wharton Future of Advertising Program, on the Marketing Matters show, which airs on Wharton Business Radio, SiriusXM channel 111. An edited transcript of the conversation follows. Catherine Hays: You are one of the true leaders in this space between AI and creativity.

Right now, the Windows Store (built into Windows 10) and Microsoft's online store are offering a number of movie rentals for $0.99. The offerings span everything from relatively new titles to some real stinkers. Top of the list for the movie rental sale includes the 2017 version of Ghost in the Shell--yes, that one. After that, the selection starts to get a little...interesting. There are classic gems like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; Superman: The Movie; and The Shining.

Following Paul Walker's death in 2013, the Furious 7 filmmakers faced the delicate task of finishing the film using a digitally created version of the actor. To do so, they resorted to performance capture with the help of the actor's brothers, Caleb and Cody, as well as painstaking computer animation from a team at VFX house Weta. That was state-of-the-art in 2014. But imagine if, instead, a computer could have stepped in, watched all of Walker's performances in the previous Furious films, learning the minute details of how he walked, talked and even raised an eyebrow. And then imagine that artificial intelligence took over and itself helped to create a digital performance for Walker's character. Now that the use of computer graphics is commonplace in movies and TV, artificial intelligence may be the most important technology to emerge in Hollywood.

The Digital Human League, for example, recently unveiled'Digital Mike' – an artificial likeness of producer Mike Seymour. The idea, Digital Mike explains in a promo video, is'to produce a virtual human, and not only a virtual human, but one rendered in real time – puppeteered or driven in real time, rendered in real time, and not only that, at 90 frames per second, in stereo, in VR.' In a new study, researchers from Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, Yale University, and AI Impacts surveyed 352 machine learning experts to forecast the progress of AI in the next few decades. The idea, Digital Mike explains in a promo video, is'to produce a virtual human, and not only a virtual human, but one rendered in real time – puppeteered or driven in real time, rendered in real time, and not only that, at 90 frames per second, in stereo, in VR' A study from Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, Yale University, and AI Impacts released this past spring concluded that in less than 50 years, AI will beat humans at everything from language translation and truck driving to writing high-school essays.

Black Mirror is coming back to depress us all, and Netflix has revealed the cast and directors for season four's episodes. If you thought the last season was perhaps a little too happy-go-lucky, the teaser below might reassure you that showrunner Charlie Booker hasn't lost sight of what made the Twilight Zone-meets-modern-technology anthology series so compelling. Per Deadline, Jodie Foster is behind the camera for "Arkangel," which looks to focus on a family's new tablet. In terms of star power on the other side of the lens, "USS Callister" features Jesse Plemons (Breaking Bad, Friday Night Lights) in the role of a very Star Trek-like starship commander. The other four episodes include "Crocodile," "Hang the DJ," "Metalhead" (which looks like it's about a killer robot) and "Black Museum."

After poking around with the object detection API and the sample tutorial code, I of course immediately wanted to train custom objects, but found myself totally lost with the available information regarding how to do it. In my searching it was pretty clear that there were quite a few other people who were totally lost. So, I stumbled through it and thought I would share a true step-by-step tutorial covering how it's done, by creating a custom macaroni and cheese object detector. Hopefully I can save some other people some time in this process. I am personally super excited about this Object Detection API from TF.

The AI takeover of jobs could soon hit the music industry, if a new album composed and produced by a robot is anything to go by. In what is believed to be a world first, software programs have provided all of the instrumentation and production for the upcoming album I AM AI. It is a collaboration between pop singer Taryn Southern and a series of machine learning apps, including Amper. The AI music composer, producer, and performer has previously released individual tracks, but never an entire album. The AI takeover of jobs previously done by people could soon hit the music industry, if a new album composed and produced by machines is anything to go by.