Getting lost in an international airport is never fun -- but if you're lost in Japan's Haneda this month, you'll at least be able get help from an adorable talking robot. From now until the 14th, Hitachi is testing its EMIEW3 humanoid robot in the airport's passenger terminal. Over the course of two weeks, EMIEW3 will direct visitors to an information display and answer questions in both English and Japanese. It's a modest test, but it's ramping up to something much more impressive: In December, the robot is scheduled to return to the airport as a guide. Visitors will be able to ask for directions to say, the currency exchange counter, and EMIEW3 will physically lead them there.

Google shouldn't enter the fashion business any time soon, if the partnership between Berlin-based Zalando and Google is any indication. Project Muze, a machine learning-based endeavor that utilizes Google's Tensor Flow system, is essentially a virtual fashion designer. Drawing from a neural network trained on various design preferences like color, style and texture of over 600 fashion trendsetters and Google Fashion Trend Report information, Project Muze can create various fashion ensembles simply by asking users a few questions about their interests. Tapping into users' music interests, moods, favorite art style and gender allows Project Muze to draft some rather, shall we say, unique fashions that are generated in real-time. To be frank, they're less-than-stellar.

Whitney says the device has greater torque per weight (torque density) than highly geared servos or brushless motors coupled with harmonic drives. And more significant: To build an autonomous robot, you'd need a set of motors and a control system capable of replacing the human puppeteer who's manually driving the fluid actuators [below]. John P. Whitney: The original motivation was the same as for the MIT WAM arm and other impedance-based systems designed for human interaction: Using a lightweight high-performance transmission allows placing the drive motors in the body, instead of suffering the cascading inertia if they were placed at each joint. We are learning that many of the "analog" qualities of this system will pay dividends for autonomous "digital" operation; for example, the natural haptic properties of the system can be of equal service to an autonomous control system as they are to a human operator.

First an AI wrote a screenplay, now IBM Watson has helped create a movie trailer. Film editors from 20th Century Fox have teamed up with IBM's AI system to create the trailer for the studio's upcoming film Morgan. Fittingly, Morgan is a sci-fi/horror movie about scientists who create an artificial humanoid whose powers grow out of control. According to IBM, trailers can be expensive and time-consuming to make, taking teams of people up to 30 days to complete. With the help of Watson APIs, IBM was able to cut that process down to one day, creating the first so-called "cognitive movie trailer".

It seems like there's more talk these days about Industry 4.0 -- or the fourth industrial revolution -- and robotics, along with other technologies that will play a role in this megatrend. Industry 4.0 is a confluence of trends and technologies that could reshape the way things are made. Industry 4.0 involves the heavy use of automation and data exchange in manufacturing environments, encompassing areas such as cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing, among others. With Industry 4.0, manufacturers will be able to operate "smarter" factories, in which they can more easily tailor products for specific customers. This new phase in manufacturing is so named because it follows the previous manufacturing phases of water/steam power, electric power, and computing power.

IBM has opened its 12th global research facility, with the launch of a new center in Johannesburg, South Africa. The lab, the second to be built by the company on the continent, is backed by a ten-year investment program, worth around 60m, which was agreed by the computing firm with the University of the Witswatersrand (Wits), the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department of Science and Technology. Across Africa, telcos and governments are putting fresh emphasis on stepping up the continent's participation in the space race. IBM's director of research for Africa, Dr Solomon Assefa, said the lab has been opened with unprecedented speed, just 18 months after the company entered into an agreement with local partners. Assefa said the facility will combine industrial research with a startup incubator, working closely with Wits' own entrepreneur accelerator in the same innovation hub, known as the Tshimologong Precinct.

A driverless tractor could run around the clock. CNH Industrial unveiled an autonomous tractor concept at the 2016 Farm Progress Show in Iowa during the last week of August. Theses self-driving tractors would be able to work around the clock while also providing real-time data monitoring. Farmers would program the tractors to accomplish specific tasks. Then, instead of sweating in the fields, they could tend to livestock or even sit in an air-conditioned office and monitor the tractors from a tablet or computer. In essence, automated equipment could turn farming into a desk job.

Hitachi Ltd. started trials of its EMIEW3 humanoid robot at Tokyo's Haneda airport on Friday to aid foreign visitors to Japan. During the trials through December in the airport's domestic Terminal 2, the robot will communicate with passengers in Japanese and English at a designated information center as well as display information. The industrial conglomerate is hoping to enable the 90-centimeter-tall humanoid robot with autonomous capabilities to guide users to destinations starting around December. At a demonstration on Friday morning, a female foreign passenger asked EMIEW3 for directions to a foreign exchange counter. The humanoid robot at the information center called another EMIEW3 robot to take her to the location.

The odds that artificial intelligence will enslave or eliminate humankind within the next decade or so are thankfully slim. So concludes a major report from Stanford University on the social and economic implications of artificial intelligence. At the same time, however, the report concludes that AI looks certain to upend huge aspects of everyday life, from employment and education to transportation and entertainment. The analysis is significant because the public alarm over the impact of AI threatens to shape public policy and corporate decisions. It predicts that automated trucks, flying vehicles, and personal robots will be commonplace by 2030, but cautions that remaining technical obstacles will limit such technologies to certain niches.

Apple's Siri upgrades will let you dictate LinkedIn messages, verbally search for shoe photos on Pinterest, and hail an Uber, hands-free. When Apple unveils its new iPhone Wednesday, it's expected to push hard on software improvements available for its next mobile operating system, iOS 10, available for current iPhones and a predicted new iPhone model. The iPhone's voice-activated digital assistant Siri will be a key part of this upgrade, say tech analysts and developers. Siri, primarily used for voice commands to dial phone numbers, set reminders and get traffic information, has been opened to third-party developers after five years of existence. "This is such a huge leap," says Sagi Dudai, vice-president of mobile development for voice over internet protocol company Vonage.