Interested in the research on machine learning and time-series analysis algorithms able to process big data in an efficient, adaptive, and robust way. Currently focused on their application to Cognitive Stimulation and Rehabilitation (see Innobrain and Cognitio projects) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (see AMATE project). Another topic of my interest is the use of Machine Learning techniques to reason and learn about musical processes like expressive music generation. Currently focused on the study of musical expressivity in Nylon Guitars (see guitarLab) and social tools for music education (see PRAISE). We have studied the issue of expressiveness in the context of tenor saxophon interpretations (see Saxex and TempoExpress systems) in collaboration with the Music Technology Group (UPF).

After finding success with guessing dog breeds and ages, Microsoft appears to be gearing up to launch a new website that can guess which celebrity a user looks like. CelebsLikeMe, which shows a percentage match with the celebrity an uploaded photo looks most like, was spotted by Twitter user h0x0d on Wednesday, before it was swiftly taken down again. Screenshots taken before the site went down reveal that Microsoft is focusing specifically on matching photos to Oscar nominees. The Oscars are scheduled to take place on February 28, so it is possible the site will go live closer to the date as a tie-in with the event. It's not the first time the site has been spotted.

Amazon introduced Thursday two gadgets similar to its voice-controlled Echo speaker, which can be used to check the weather, order Domino's pizza or hail an Uber car. The Amazon Tap, a portable speaker that streams music, sells for $129.99. The $89.99 Echo Dot is a hockey puck-shaped device that responds to prompts to control smart appliances and connects to external speakers. For now, the Echo Dot is available only to Amazon Prime members who already have the original Echo device and Amazon's Fire TV set-top box. The original Echo, launched in 2014, is larger and cannot connect to external speakers.

You may think that the cuddly rubber-skinned dinosaur robot on Steve Bannerman's shoulder is just another low-priced Christmas gift. But to Bannerman, a former Apple staffer who set up Quicktime TV (which became the iTunes Store), Pleo, as the dinosaur is called, might just be the future of human-machine interaction. Pleo, made by a company called Ugobe, coos and even sings. Rub its neck and stomach and it blinks its baby-like eyes and turns towards you and writhes happily. He likes it," says Bannerman. "He's got sound and video sensors," he explains. When it's stroked, the machine reacts with - well, you'd call it pleasure. Bannerman has only been with Ugobe since April; he'd previously cashed out of Apple at the height of the dotcom boom. But Pleo fascinated him: "I fell in love with this dinosaur," he says. "I loved the artificial intelligence component." He points to Wall-E, Pixar's latest: "What's cool is that they built character into it.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, someone had the idea that science would be at its most interesting when it was being subverted. Just as science itself was developing, storytellers began expanding the worlds of physics, biology, chemistry and engineering. They came up with a universe full of lightsabers, spaceships and robots, steeped in a heady brew of technobabble and draped on a background of journeys to exotic worlds. But science fiction is more than just pulp fiction; at its core is the desire to understand humanity's place in the universe. We asked leading scientists from around the world what science fiction meant to them: how they related to it and what influence it had on them.

It should be settling into senior citizenship, but the 65-year-old festival is reinventing itself this year. The programme has been mixed up by a host of guest curators – ranging from Gus Van Sant to Jim Jarmusch, and Mike Skinner to Apichatpong Weerasethakul. And as well as the usual core of new international features and documentaries, there are envelope-pushing new strands and events. Of the conventional features, highlights include Romain Gavras's awaited feature debut Our Day Will Come, a French skinhead tale that looks as confrontational as his music video work (which plays beforehand). David Hare presents his new MI5 thriller Page Eight, led by Bill Nighy (who'll also be giving an onstage interview); Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle buddy up in Irish cop comedy The Guard; and festival regular David McKenzie returns with apocalyptic art sci-fi Perfect Sense, starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green.

When Haldeman returned from Vietnam, with a Purple Heart for the wounds he had suffered, he wrote a story about a pointless conflict that seems as if it will never end. It was set in space, and the enemies were aliens, but 18 publishers decided it was too close to home before St Martin's Press took a gamble. The book that "nobody wants to read" went on to win many prizes. It's not perfect - it's hard to take seriously a future in which hetereosexuality is a perversion - but the anti-war message is as powerful as ever. Known for his intricate short stories and critically acclaimed mountaineering novel Climbers, Harrison cut his teeth on SF. In typical fashion, he writes space opera better than many who write only in the genre. For all its star travel and alien artefacts, scuzzy 25th-century spaceports and drop-out space pilots, Light is actually about twisting three plotlines as near as possible to snapping point. This is as close as SF gets to literary fiction, and literary fiction gets to SF. Jon Courtenay Grimwood Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop Amateur stonemason, waterbed designer, reformed socialist, nudist, militarist and McCarthyite, Heinlein is one of the most interesting and irritating figures in American science fiction.

Welcome to Weird Things, a new regular column taking an oblique look at strange ideas from the worlds of SF, fantasy and beyond, that might – just might – be worth thinking about. Daniel H Wilson's novel, Robopocalypse, comes pre-packaged with two Unique Selling Points. First, that the author holds a Phd in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, and is hence more than just another oddball SF writer with an overactive imagination. And that, having been bought by Steven Spielberg for production "even before it was finished", the novel is already a success, and nothing breeds success like success. If the point of a book's title is to let the reader (or potential Hollywood producer) know exactly what is inside the tin, then Robopocalypse succeeds admirably. No doubt the sequels Zombiegeddon and Alienvasion have already been commissioned (from other suitably qualified experts).

Although Jibo, designed by MIT professor Cynthia Breazeal to be the "world's first family robot," isn't set to ship until 2015, folks are already excited about this little bot with a "big personality." While there's much to be said for Breazeal's vision of "humanizing technology" so that the smart home of the future doesn't "feel cold and computerized," we might want to pause a bit before rushing to build the type of world depicted in the movie Her. Although it is easy to imagine we'll be better off when we've got less to do, we don't actually know the existential and social implications of outsourcing ever-more intimate tasks to technology. Jibo may be the "closest thing to a real life teleportation device," but as a prototype it currently has limited functionality. It can "take photos or video, track movements for more dynamic video filming, perform stories for children, give verbal reminders, and generally hang out."

For anyone that wants Siri to do more than set iCal appointments and dictate messages, there may be hope beyond a hack. is reportedly working on allowing third-party services to integrate with Siri so that the iPhone's digital assistant can carry out tasks -- book flights or send texts on other messaging apps -- which go beyond the services Apple can provide. Currently Siri syncs to other services with whom Apple has made business arrangements, such as Wolfram Alpha or Open table, but future integrations wouldn't require painstaking deals according to the report from tech news service The Information. Apple needs to step up Siri's abilities in the face of mounting competition from Now and a Siri-like digital assistant that is reportedly bringing to Windows Phone in early April, called Cortana. Even voice recognition firm Nuance, whose technology powers Siri, is augmenting its own digital assistant Wintermute with the ability to search a multitude of third-party apps, according to one source close to the project. It's clear that iPhone users want digital assistants like Siri to work with other services.