Bing uses search, social, and other relevant data to make intelligent predictions about upcoming events, like sporting events, reality TV shows, award shows, and political elections. In this episode, Jennifer Marsman interviews Jonas Barklund and Mo Zhou about the machine learning technology that powers Bing's predictions on who will win award shows like the Grammy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and Academy Awards.

Last month, the Washington Post reported on a surprising new job in Silicon Valley: bot-writer. "Increasingly, there are poets, comedians, fiction writers, and other artistic types charged with engineering the personalities for a fast-growing crop of artificial intelligence tools," the Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin wrote. These personalities, Dwoskin reported, will soon be joined by more specialized bots developed by other companies, among them Sophie and Molly, "nurse avatars" that talk to patients about their medical conditions. There's even a "guru avatar" in development, designed to teach meditation. These products are exciting and futuristic--just a decade ago, the possibility of conversing with a computer program seemed like science fiction.

On The Tonight Show, in March 1978, the late astronomer Carl Sagan had lots to talk about. He had just published Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence--which would win the Pulitzer Prize--and Star Wars, released the year before, still captivated the public's imagination. When Johnny Carson, the show's then-host, asked Sagan to expand on some comments he'd made prior to the evening, about the film's indifference to scientific accuracy, Sagan said the "11-year-old in me loved" it, but it "could have made a better effort to do things right." His critique would resonate today: After making the biological point that the Star Wars scenario--humans evolving long ago, in a faraway galaxy--is vastly improbable, Sagan said there's another problem: "They're all white." Carson, pushing back a bit, said, "They did have a scene in Star Wars with a lot of strange characters."

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