Sci-fi and tech movies have been around for a surprisingly long time. They frequently tackle similar themes of exploring consciousness or over-dependence on technology which almost everytime leads to disastrous results. But, which movies are the essential ones to watch? You might be asking "What is your selection criteria?". Well, that is a good question. We may not be able to give you a definitive answer for each movie but for most of the list; it is self-evident.

When you imagine the ideal chatbot, what do you picture? The bot in your mind's eye may resemble something along the lines of blockbuster movie favorites like Baymax from "Big Hero 6," "Wall-E's" EVE, or my personal hero, C-3PO. You probably didn't imagine a small tower that lives on your shelf, like Alexa; a virtual being that resides in the cloud and is accessed through your smartphone, like Siri; or even a pop-up chat window on your computer screen that can answer questions about your favorite products. Besides their looks, there's another major difference between today's artificial intelligence (AI) and our movie favorites: Our most beloved fictional chatbots all possess emotional intelligence (EI). As we move into the future, AI needs humanizing qualities to improve the way it interacts with us, meets our needs for information, and even controls the other technology around us.

Their machine-learning platform predicted a trio of reagents that was able to generate a never-before-seen cancer-like phenotype in tadpoles. The research, reported in Scientific Reports on January 27, shows how artificial intelligence (AI) can help human researchers in fields such as oncology and regenerative medicine control complex biological systems to reach new and previously unachievable outcomes. The researchers had previously shown that pigment cells (melanocytes) in developing frogs could be converted to a cancer-like, metastatic form by disrupting their normal bioelectric and serotonergic signaling and had used AI to reverse-engineer a model that explained this complex process. However, during these extensive experiments, the biologists observed something remarkable: All the melanocytes in a single frog larva either converted to the cancer-like form or remained completely normal. Conversion of only some of the pigment cells in a single tadpole was never seen; how, the researchers asked, could such an all-or-none coordination of cells across the tadpole body be explained and controlled?

Iconic filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is asking the public to contribute $900,000 to aid him in his efforts to adapt his blockbuster war film "Apocalypse Now" into an interactive, psychological horror video game, according to a Kickstarter page set up on Wednesday. The video game will transpose the player into the shoes of the U.S. army Captain Willard (protagonist of the 1979 film, played by Martin Sheen) who is sent on a secret mission to exterminate renegade Colonel Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando). Over $93,000 has already been raised for the project being developed by Coppola's privately-held American Zoetrope film studio since it was announced Wednesday. "Forty years ago, I set out to make a personal art picture that could hopefully influence generations of viewers for years to come. Today, I'm joined by new daredevils, a team who want to make an interactive version of'Apocalypse Now', where you are Captain Benjamin Willard amidst the harsh backdrop of the Vietnam War," Coppola said in a statement, according to Reuters.

Actor Kristen Stewart, known for her portrayal of Bella in the "Twilight" movie franchise and director of "Come Swim" at the Sundance Film Festival, now has another line on her résumé: co-author of a computer science paper. The paper, published online in the preprint journal ArXiv, is called "Bringing Impressionism to Life with Neural Style Transfer in Come Swim." The authors describe a set of programming shortcuts that can make movie shots look as though they were painted or drawn in a certain style, such as impressionism or pointillism. The process relies on machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence, and gave certain shots in the film short, which uses allusive images to follow a man through his day, the look of an impressionistic painting. The shot described in the paper is about 15 seconds long, and the painting is by Stewart herself.

WorkFusion, the leading provider of intelligent automation, has closed a $35 million Series D financing round led by Georgian Partners with participation from existing investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, iNovia, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), Greycroft and RTP Ventures, bringing total funds raised to $71 million. The funding will accelerate customer adoption of AI-powered automation as they realize the immense productivity gains from digitizing business processes. "We invested in WorkFusion not only because it aligns with our thesis that AI will transform business, but most importantly because the company has made machine learning practical and powerful for enterprise operations," said Justin LaFayette, Managing Partner at Georgian Partners. "WorkFusion has category leading products and a strong leadership aligned by a powerful vision of helping businesses drive rapid productivity improvements with AI." WorkFusion transforms operations through self-learning, process-level automation that eliminates up to 90% of manual back-office work and AI-powered chat bots that increase front office service center capacity by 5x. "IDC estimates the AI and cognitive systems market will grow from $8 billion in 2016 to over $47 billion in 2020 and businesses are looking to invest in the most innovative and comprehensive automation technologies on the market," said Max Yankelevich, WorkFusion CEO.

Marketers are beginning to realize AI’s potential as a tool for improving the effectiveness of campaigns, but understanding of its capacity remains limited. "Smith & Tinker's Patent Double-Action, Extra-Responsive, Thought-Creating, Perfect-Talking Mechanical Man […] Thinks, Speaks, Acts, and Does Everything but Live." - Ozma of Oz, L. Frank Baum, 1907 Written almost 110 years ago, L. Frank Baum's product description of a mechanical man powered by artificial intelligence (AI) was a humorous oddity in a fantasy world. While we may not have Tik-Tok -- except on screen in the Return to OZ -- we do now have smart technology. The powerful urge to streamline our existence has spawned a host of consumer-level AI applications that promise to do nearly everything. AI-driven tools like image and voice recognition on smartphones, algorithm-based viewing suggestions for Netflix, and Google’s real language analysis in search, are now integral to everyday life.

Imagine if your name was synonymous with an incredibly popular form of artificial intelligence. For women with the name Alexa, the success of Amazon's digital assistant has made the name both more recognizable as well as spurred inevitable jokes about, for example, what the weather is doing (Amazon's Alexa can give a weather report). In December of last year, the tech giant said it had sold millions of Alexa-enabled units-- nine times more than the previous holiday season. The Echo is "officially mainstream," according to Slice Intelligence. I spoke to five Alexas for a lighthearted look at how they feel about their name.

One thousand people will have their minds monitored at the same time while watching the new sci-fi movie MindGamers on March 28. The one-night event, MindGamers: One Thousand Minds Connected LIVE will take place in select movie theatres nationwide, presented by Fathom Events and Terra Mater Film Studios. The event will be the "world's first mass mind collective" Fathom Events said. The minds of one thousand people will be simultaneously connected through cloud technology while watching the sci-fi movie by wearing a cognition headband. The headbands will allow scientist to track the audience members' minds (all at once) and create an image of the "mass-mind state."

A week hasn't even passed since the inauguration, but television news is saturated with the flurry of activity from President Donald Trump's administration. Trump, via Twitter, promised to launch an investigation into illegal voting and threatened to "send in the Feds" if Chicago police can't fix the "carnage." And that was just between Tuesday and Wednesday. This heightened scrutiny compelled the Internet Archive, a repository of everything posted on the web, to launch its Trump Archive in early January. You, perhaps, digitally time-traveled with the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, or checked out free books, movies and software.