"Finally, the enemy has been defeated," a toddler-sized robot announces to a captive audience inside the convention center in downtown San Jose as it enacts a scene from Star Wars. A few seconds later, it dances to "Thriller," takes a tumble, but gets back on its feet and belts out a song. It's a social robot, one that will even read you your email, and make cute conversation if you want it to. Nearby, the world's first MotoBot, or motorcycle robot, perched on a Yamaha YZF-R1M, does a great job of making regular motorcyclists seem pretty insignificant. Even as it sits still.

The move comes as Qi Lu, a longtime Microsoft engineering leader who was most recently executive vice president of the Applications and Services Group that includes Bing and Office, leaves the company to focus on his recovery from a bicycle accident. Lu, a former Yahoo engineer with dozens of patents to his name, is widely respected within the technology industry, but a rare public speaker outside of it. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive, worked for Lu when Nadella led engineering work on the Bing search engine. "Qi exemplifies what it means to have a deep sense of mission, purpose and authenticity in everything one does," Nadella said in an email to employees on Thursday. "His greatest impact is the people he has inspired. I count myself among them."

Xiaomi on Tuesday announced the launch of its second line of smart TVs- The Mi TV 3S, available in 55 inches and 65 inch and sporting 4K displays. This is the Chinese tech giant's second outing in the smart television market. Earlier in March, Xiaomi had launched the 43-inch FHD TV and the 65-inch curved Mi TV 3S. NNow, bothe the Mi TV 3S variants launched on Tuesday have 4K resolutions and support HDR. In China, they are priced at RMB 3,500( 525) and RMB 5,000( 750), respectively.

For the past couple of decades, the trend in technological development has been toward maximizing the capacities of computers and machines to do tasks that people would rather not do, or at least ones that machines could do cheaper. In an interview with Raconteur, chief strategy and innovation officer for The Future Laboratory Tracey Fellows predicts that 35 percent of jobs currently done by humans could be taken over by robots one day, and those would include jobs that are either tedious or dangerous, saving innumerable hours and lives. The landmark achievement of the 21st century is, arguably, artificial intelligence (AI). With the writing of some strings of code, machines can now perceive their environment, process relevant information, and execute actions that provide the highest probability of success. Further innovations in artificial intelligence are often driven by the elimination of human error in day-to-day tasks (e.g., self-driving cars).

Given its potential, it's nagged researchers that getting one's eyes tracked wasn't easier. "It was quite shocking to me that we all don't have eye-trackers," says Aditya Khosla, a graduate student in the computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory of MIT's electrical engineering and computer science department. Khosla and a team of six other researchers from the University of Georgia and the Max Planck Institute of Informatics in Saarbruecken, Germany, set out to achieve a straightforward goal: create eye-tracking software that could run on any mobile phone with a camera.

At the end of Sept 2016 #ArtificialIntelligence paranoia was evident. An AI Allliance (Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, to benefit people and society.) Commenting on the Partnership, Mashable seems rather ignorant; or at least they don't speak for S45, when they wrote (1 Oct 2016): "We are racing toward a future we barely understand." Mashable elaborated: "And it scares the hell out of people." Why does Mashable think the future is difficult to understand?

CHINA has long been seen as the "world's factory," churning out vast mountains of low-quality goods, but it is also considered a nation incapable of producing innovative products and ideas. Now, this is beginning to change -- China is closing the innovation gap. From drones to artificial intelligence, the Internet to genetic engineering, innovative Chinese companies are leading global innovation and reshaping the country's technology and business landscape. "There is a huge market with great opportunity," said Dai Xiang, co-founder and general manager of Enpower Energy, a manufacturer of aqueous ion batteries, which are cleaner, safer and more cost-effective than lead-acid batteries. After 20 years in the United States, working as a senior manager for start-ups in Silicon Valley, Dai decided to go back to China and start his own business.

"Data-Driven Thinking" is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today's column is written by Mark Smith, president at Kitewheel. Marketers, being marketers, are always looking to invent new names for their products to make those products seem better than previous iterations. This is most common when the need for new product cycles outpaces companies' ability to produce significant new features or advances. For an excellent example, take a look at what's been happening in the analytics space for the past 25 years.

The honor and struggle of the working class is a staple of auteur cinema -- in modern days, via some of the works of the Dardenne brothers and Mike Leigh and, in earlier times, with classics such as "The Bicycle Thief." But few directors do neorealism like Ken Loach. And few Loach movies arrive at a more propitious moment than the British director's latest, "I, Daniel Blake." The surprising (to some critics, really surprising) recipient of this year's Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, "Blake" made its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival on Saturday ahead of its American release in December. It comes as income inequality has dominated a presidential election cycle and driven various forms of populism across Europe.

Patrick Meier (center, in cap) flies a drone in Nepal after the earthquake in 2015. Meier and his team were able to to capture detailed images of damage around the capital, Kathmandu. He believes using this technology will make crisis mapping even more effective for disaster response. Patrick Meier (center, in cap) flies a drone in Nepal after the earthquake in 2015. Meier and his team were able to to capture detailed images of damage around the capital, Kathmandu. He believes using this technology will make crisis mapping even more effective for disaster response.