A recent explosion of neuroscience techniques is driving substantial advances in our understanding of the brain. Combined with developments in engineering, machine learning and computing this flowering has helped us enhance our cognitive abilities and potential. In fact, new research into the extraordinary machine in our skulls is helping us keep pace with the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. Exciting new advances are everywhere, but worth putting front and centre are findings made in the relatively new area of social neuroscience. Research by Molly Crockett at Oxford University has demonstrated how we might influence the social brain and examine the effects of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, and hormones, such as oxytocin, on social cognition and social interactions. This includes the most fundamental aspects of our daily lives: trust, punishment, moral judgement, conformity and empathy.

A wrong landing could be all it takes to break a robot. To protect our robot friends from their inevitable falls, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are creating customizable shock-absorbent padding. The team's "Programmable Viscoelastic Material" (PVM) technique allows users to digitally program every part of a 3D-printed object to exact levels of stiffness and elasticity. "We can make really effective dampers and those dampers can be tailored exactly to the application by controlling the amount of liquid and solid," one of the researchers, Robert MacCurdy, told Quartz. Although viscoelastics like rubber and plastic are cheap, compact, and readily available, they can prove hard to customize to specific levels of damping, which can reduce the rebound after impact.

The new robot from Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. can't do much but chatter in a high-pitched voice. But the 390, 4-inch-tall, doll-like Kirobo Mini -- whose name comes from "kibo," or "hope," and "robot" -- supposedly has the smarts of a 5-year-old. Fuminori Kataoka, general manager in charge of the project, says its value is emotional, going from home to car to the outdoors as a faithful companion, although the owner must do all the walking and driving. Preorders start later this year. Shipments are set for next year.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) recently created a new AI and Research Group, staffed by 5,000 engineers and computer scientists, as its fourth engineering group alongside Windows, Office, and Azure. The new division merges its Microsoft Research and Information Platform Groups with the teams working on Bing, Cortana, robotics, and "ambient computing" environments, which are responsive to the presence of people. The group will be led by Harry Shum, a 20-year Microsoft veteran who previously served as the company's Executive VP of Technology and Research. Microsoft stated that the group will use a "four-pronged approach" to "democratize AI": by offering intelligent services in "agents" like Cortana, infusing applications with features like Skype translate, adding services with facial recognition and machine analytics, and expanding its cloud infrastructure to "build the world's most powerful supercomputer with Azure." At Microsoft's Ignite conference in late September, CEO Satya Nadella declared that "AI is at the intersection of our ambitions."

Tech behemoths Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon announced this week that they are teaming up to develop new standards for Artificial Intelligence (AI). Soon AI will change everything from warfare to our bodies. But we don't want to become slaves to the robots, so how do we stop the Terminators? A great deal of money going into AI is invested by defence companies. We need to put a complete ban on autonomous weapons, at least until we know for sure that they can apply the rules of war as well as humans.

The Chinese search behemoth, Baidu, announced a 200m investment initiative focused on AI and ran a pre-release of their new open source deep learning framework called PaddlePaddle. The company has a ways to go to compete given that developers are still more likely to use TensorFlow, which holds the lead along with Caffe, Keras and Theano. Speaking of the growing number of hardware and software configurations available today, this research paper provides helpful benchmarks. Backchannel run a rare piece on how Apple uses machine learning. It states that a 200mb software package runs on the iPhone encompassing "app usage data, interactions with contacts, neural net processing, a speech modeler and a natural language event modeling system".

As Australians increasingly convert to lower emissions energy systems, major energy retailer EnergyAustralia is looking to offer smarter energy solutions to its 2.5 million customers by making a AU 9.3 million strategic investment in Brisbane-based solar energy startup Redback Technologies. The funding will help Redback accelerate the development of a new technology that will allow Australians to have greater control over their energy consumption, save costs, and contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions. Philip Livingston, founder and managing director of Redback Technologies, said the partnership with EnergyAustralia also accelerates the company's strategic plan of "leading the disruptive change required for mass adoption of renewables." "Today marks a new day for the clean energy sector in Australia, and we at Redback could not be happier," Livingston added. Globally, Australia has the highest proportion of households -- 16.5 percent or 1.5 million -- equipped with solar panels.

East Japan Railway Co., on Monday started a pilot project under which a humanoid robot serves visitors in English, Chinese and Japanese. Placed in front of the travel service center at the Marunouchi north exit, the 90-cm, 15-kg Emiew3 can respond questions on directions on trains leaving and arriving at the station as well as shops and restaurants within the station. It can also provide information on tourist attractions around the station. The robot, developed by Hitachi, Ltd., will be in service on weekdays through Oct. 28, for JR East to test its ability to comprehend questions and whether it can recognize people's voices in a crowded, noisy environment. Emiew3, which can also show maps through a screen on its back, is also being tested at Haneda airport.

To look at the stats you wouldn't think so: Apple has two million of them in its App Store and Google Play has a few hundred thousand more than that. Total app downloads have passed the 150 billion mark. But some are wondering whether apps are about to be replaced by something smaller, smarter and faster. These programs, thanks to AI [artificial intelligence] software in the cloud, can chat to humans via text, extract the meaning and then act on it. Any time you see a live chat box open up on a retailer's website, or order a taxi or flowers through chat platforms such as WeChat and Facebook Messenger, you're most likely talking to a bot.

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