MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is putting together the 3D printing and materials technology. The development of a new method for making soft materials with user-specified properties could soon be used to improve the durability of many materials. The researchers call it a printable "programmable viscoelastic material" and the technique allows the user to adjust every part of a 3D printed material to the exact level of stiffness and elasticity they want, depending on the intended use. The customization of the material's properties is achieved by using a combination of materials, solid, liquid and viscoelastic. The process deposits droplets of alternating materials depending on how rigid or elastic its application will require.

At its hardware launch event in San Francisco yesterday, Alphabet showed the sweeping breadth of its ambition to own consumers' personal data, as computing continues to accelerate away from static desktops and screens, coalescing into a cloud of connected devices with the potential to generate far more data -- and data of a far more intimate nature -- than ever before. Along with two new'Google designed' flagship Android smartphones (called Pixel), the first Androids to be preloaded with the company's AI assistant (the Google Assistant), and also including fully unlimited cloud storage to suck users' photos and videos into Google's cloud; there were Google Wifi routers, designed to be bought in bundles to plug all those pesky in-home Internet blackspots; the Google Home always listening connected speaker, which is voice controlled via the Google Assistant and has limited support for third party IoT devices (such as Philips Hue lightbulbs); an updated Chromecast (the Ultra) to ensure any legacy TV panels are Internet-enabled; and Google's less disposable mobile VR play, aka the soft-touch Daydream View headset -- just in case consumer eyeballs seek to stray outside the data-mined smart home by escaping into virtual reality. The scope of Alphabet's ambition for the Google brand is clear: it wants Google's information organizing brain to be embedded right at the domestic center -- i.e. In other words, your daily business is Google's business. "We're moving from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world," said CEO Sundar Pichai kicking off yesterday's event.

Wall Street was impressed by Tuesday's big Google event, which unveiled new hardware like the Pixel phone and the Google Home device, and launched the company's new artificial intelligence-powered Assistant onto several new devices. The company's stock has remained stable since then -- it's up slightly, about 0.46% as of 10 a.m. Wednesday -- but analysts say the new products are a good sign for Google, despite the fact that Google appears to be following in the footsteps of other more accomplished hardware companies like Apple and Amazon. Macquarie remains bullish on Google, affirming its "outperform" rating and setting a price target of 975. It describes Google's new products as "me too" -- meaning it's showing up to the game a bit late, after Apple has already mastered the smartphone and Amazon has dominated the AI-powered device market with Alexa and the Echo.

The flotation pod is smaller than I'd expected. It's white and round like an egg and, at first glance, seems like it couldn't be any longer than I am tall. Sitting in a tiled treatment room at a day spa in Carroll Gardens, the pod looks incongruous, like someone left an oversize computer mouse in a bathroom. I'm here, at a place called Lift Floats, to try sensory-deprivation flotation -- a Sixties throwback technology, invented by the neuroscientist John C. Lilly (best remembered today as the guy who came up with oddball experiments to study human-dolphin communication), that has lately regained popularity, particularly among athletes and Silicon Valley types. After being shown to the room, I shower, enter the pod naked, and close the lid. I lie back as the pod starts to play gentle music and the faint LED lights bathe the water in colors.

On Tuesday, Jen Golbeck shut down a mansplainer who suggested that Golbeck learn how to use the computer program Java. You know why Golbeck was not having this mansplaining BS? Because she's a goddamn computer scientist who teaches programming classes as a professor at the University of Maryland. I can't tell you how frustrating shit like this is. Especially having to deal with comments like this over and over and over," Golbeck wrote on Twitter with a screenshot of her exchange with the mansplainer attached.

It was a bit surprising, on Tuesday morning, to see Google's C.E.O., Sundar Pichai, stride onstage in San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square and start talking about the quality of Google's software and the information it brings to people. The event had been billed as a presentation of new hardware devices; some were even describing it as the most significant event of its kind that Google had ever held. And yet, there was Pichai, going on about how Google's software allows people to connect with "over seventy billion facts about people, places, and things." Only at the end of this speech did he get to a hardware-related point: all this impressive software would be embedded in Google's new devices. Google is in the middle of an awkward transition.

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

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

Google has long been the king of search, building its empire by answering questions, giving directions and helping people settle arguments with its vast database of facts. But as more people search using their voice -- verbally asking questions to Apple's Siri or Amazon Echo's Alexa -- instead of typing queries into their phones or laptops, the tech giant risks ceding some of that dominance. To future-proof itself from competitors, the Mountain View, Calif., tech firm announced Tuesday a new slate of electronic devices that support voice search and come pre-installed with Google Assistant, the company's artificial intelligence bot that can do a wide variety of things, including answering queries and making restaurant reservations. "[Google Assistant] will be a two-way conversation, a natural dialogue between our users and Google," said Sundar Pichai, Google's chief executive. "It will be universal, available when users need it to help them. Our goal is to build a personal Google for each and every user."

In his experiment, Queen Mary University of London researcher Sylvian Alem attached a fake flower sprinkled with sugar water to the end of a string, placed it under a transparent sheet of glass and then put a group of bumblebees to a test. If he trained them to pull the string to get the sugar water, would they be able to learn it – and spread the skill to their colony? When Lars Chittka, a professor at the university, saw the experiment, he was surprised. "What I like about the work," Dr. Chittka said in a press release, "in addition to the experimental and intellectual challenges and insights, is the sheer absurdity of seeing bees solving a string-pulling puzzle. When lead author Sylvain Alem first showed me a bee successfully pulling on the string, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. And even now, looking at the videos still makes me laugh."