People who rely on satnav could be at risk of losing their ability to navigate, an expert has warned. Writing in the journal Nature, former president of the Royal Institute of Navigation Roger McKinlay argues that our reliance on GPS technology is misplaced and could be eroding our innate way-finding abilities. "If we do not cherish them, our natural navigation abilities will deteriorate as we rely ever more on smart devices," he wrote. McKinlay believes huge investment will be needed before navigation systems will be good enough to allow technologies such as autonomous vehicles to take off. In the meantime, he argues, we need better research into systems for navigation while children should be encouraged to learn how to find their way around by more traditional means.

It is vital to the economy that Australia embraces innovation, according to Andrew Penn, with the Telstra CEO saying Australia should mimic the telecommunications company's strategy of combining incubation and collaboration with building human skills and developing new technologies. Speaking at the Charles Todd Oration 2015 in Sydney on Thursday, Penn outlined the three drivers of innovation as being a combination of the move to mobile and consequently the Internet of Things (IoT); the widespread usage of cloud computing; and the rise of machine-to-machine (M2M) learning and artificial intelligence. "The exponential growth in data, driven by a massive shift to mobile and the Internet of Things with the ability to store and access that data in the cloud in real-time and the computing power with advanced algorithms and machine learning -- these factors together are providing the capacity to solve almost limitless problems," the CEO said. Citing a recent Deloitte report, Penn claimed that the digital sector contributed AU$79 billion in 2014 -- or 5.1 percent of the GDP -- making it the largest segment of the Australian economy. He said that the rapidity of technological innovation has had far-reaching implications for traditional business, however.

SoftBank Robotics America (SBRA) announced that its friendly humanoid will spend a week at b8ta, a Palo Alto store designed for trying and buying new tech products. From August 11th to 18th, the store's visitors can interact with Pepper, and programmers are invited to a developer's workshop on August 16th to learn how to create apps for the robot. In hospitals around the world, surgeons are getting help from new robotic assistants. We spoke with Steve Carlin, VP Marketing & Business Development at SBRA, to find out more about the company's plans to officially introduce Pepper to North America later this year. He told ZDNet, "Our first initiative is to incentivize the development community to understand what the platform is, and bring their creativity onto the platform."

Google is building its very own artificial brain using tens of thousands of computers, hoping to improve stuff like voice and image search. And Facebook has followed suit, aiming to solve its big data problems with help from the principles of neuroscience. There's even an open source framework for building software applications based on brains. Although mimicking the structure of the brain was one of the original techniques researchers experimented with when trying to create machine intelligence in the 50s and 60s, the idea -- called neural networking -- eventually fell out of favor. But now it's back with a vengeance, and it might just change the way computer hardware is designed.

LOS ANGELES--Will.i.am sounds congested and subdued, his batteries running low after a high-octane appearance on The Ellen Show earlier that day. He's longing for 2025, when an artificial intelligence will be able to tell him to take it easy. "Will, you sound like you are stuffy," he says in the voice of this fictional AI. "What did you eat recently? Stay away from sweets because they are causing you more mucus. You should get some rest tonight. I'm going to cancel your appointments from 7 pm. I've already bought you some epsom salts from CVS. Go and pick them up."

At CEATEC 2012, we had an opportunity to try the conversation mode at CEATEC, and it worked quite well. The concept is simple: two people speaking different language can communicate on a turn-by-turn basis, and the Docomo app translates each phrase in both visual and audio form in real-time. At any given time, each party can easily see if their phrase had been properly translated as every phrase always appear in both languages (see above). While this app may resemble Google Translate (Android version) on the surface, the Docomo translator user interface is much better tuned for a two-person use, while Google Translate really works OK for a single person. I found the interaction with the Docomo app to be quicker and more natural than with Google Translate.

It has taken 16 years but James Dyson has achieved one of his dreams: to build a robotic vacuum cleaner. As befits a device of the modern age, it can be controlled remotely via a smartphone app – and reports on where it has been. Announced on Thursday, the Dyson 360 Eye relies on two breakthroughs: a machine vision system that takes in a whole room from a single camera lens and a powerful lightweight digital motor that enhances battery life. Sir James Dyson says that the machine vision system for the device – which was introduced in Japan and is due to go on sale in the UK in summer 2015 – will have applications beyond household appliances. "We think vision is a technology of the future," Dyson told the Guardian.

Imagine waking up in the morning, stretching, and asking your sleeping smartphone, "Ahoy, Google, what's the weather like?" to get the local forecast. A new feature unveiled this week by mobile chip maker Qualcomm could soon make this a reality. Called Snapdragon Voice Activation, it will wake up gadgets that include the company's Snapdragon 800 processors--intended for things like high-end smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs--from standby or airplane mode once you've uttered a special voice command that phonemakers like HTC and Samsung can determine. The feature then starts up the phone's own voice-recognition software, such as Android's Google Now voice search. Such "persistent listening" technology may pick up steam as growing hordes of smartphone owners become acquainted with voice-activated search and virtual personal assistants like Google Now and Siri, and as Qualcomm and others begin adding it to chips.

Persona is one of the latest fashion magazines in Tokyo. It's printed on heavy stock paper and is full of photos of models and clothing. The only thing missing is text. An app recognizes the images, queries a cloud database and then downloads related information such as pricing and availability of dresses. Other photos feature images of tomatoes and wine, triggering a related vegetable delivery service and wine retailer, as well as online coupons.

Oliver G. Selfridge, an innovator in early computer science and artificial intelligence, died on Wednesday in Boston. The cause was injuries suffered in a fall on Sunday at his home in nearby Belmont, Mass., said his companion, Edwina L. Rissland. Credited with coining the term "intelligent agents," for software programs capable of observing and responding to changes in their environment, Mr. Selfridge theorized about far more, including devices that would not only automate certain tasks but also learn through practice how to perform them better, faster and more cheaply. Eventually, he said, machines would be able to analyze operator instructions to discern not just what users requested but what they actually wanted to occur, not always the same thing. His 1958 paper "Pandemonium: A Paradigm for Learning," which proposed a collection of small components dubbed "demons" that together would allow machines to recognize patterns, was a landmark contribution to the emerging science of machine learning.