The European Union's digital chief wants search engines such as Alphabet Inc's Google and Microsoft's Bing to be more transparent about advertising in web search results but ruled out a separate law for web platforms. European Commission vice-president Andrus Ansip, who is overseeing a wide-ranging inquiry into how web platforms conduct their business, said on Friday the EU executive would not take a horizontal approach to regulating online services. "We will take a problem-driven approach," Ansip said. "It's practically impossible to regulate all the platforms with one really good single solution." Related: Do Google's'unprofessional hair' results show it is racist?

I have not yet read James Joyce's Ulysses. The majority of the population also has not. However, of those who have, it seems that most laud it. It is so universally praised that even people who have never read the book reference it as an archetypal masterpiece. Presumably, reading it doesn't require a special skill set beyond reasonable literacy.

There has recently been an explosion of cynicism in the Twitterverse (and generally in the tech community) about machine learning and AI. This was taken up a notch after Facebook's F8 conference earlier this week and the splashy launch of their bot platform on Messenger. When you dig in, many of the companies claiming to be leveraging machine learning are doing nothing of the sort. It's easy to find companies that are building weak ML-driven user experiences, turning off early adopters. Others are building products centered around gimmicky ML features that won't create any sort of long term barrier to competitors, frustrating would-be investors.

There has recently been an explosion of cynicism in the Twitterverse (and generally in the tech community) about machine learning and AI. This was taken up a notch after Facebook's F8 conference earlier this week and the splashy launch of their bot platform on Messenger. When you dig in, many of the companies claiming to be leveraging machine learning are doing nothing of the sort. It's easy to find companies that are building weak ML-driven user experiences, turning off early adopters. Others are building products centered around gimmicky ML features that won't create any sort of long term barrier to competitors, frustrating would-be investors.

Rodney Brooks wasn't willing in 2002 to hazard a guess about when the challenges of robotics would be overcome. "Not in two years or three years," Brooks asserted during an IndustryWeek interview that year. "But is it going to be here in 30 years or 40 years? I'm not quite prepared [to make a prediction]." Still in a book published then and the interview, he gave us a peak at what it would look like when it arrived: "robots that take instruction easily rather than ones that require hours of programming time; robots that can help in small-batch operations rather than ones that only make financial sense in continuous or nearly continuous fixed operation settings with long runs; robots with social interaction skills;" and robots that reduce costs on the factory floor.

Much research and development has gone to analyzing human language and messages, from voice recognition software like Siri to supercomputers analyzing text to determine the writer's attitude and tone. While this has many applications in many fields, one stands out in particular: Marketing. With this in mind, it seems that Goldman Sachs is making a bigger push towards developing tech and software for marketing, with a 30 million dollar investment in "cognitive content," or automated copywriting. A Series C round for software company Persado was led by Goldman Sachs and includes all of Persado's previous investors: Bain Capital Ventures, StarVest Ventures, American Express Ventures, and Citi Ventures. It increases the New York-based company's outside funding to 66 million since its creation.

Speculating what will cause our ultimate demise has been the stuff of science fiction for years--if it's not aliens wiping out the human race, it's probably robots. This is a proven trope that keeps moviegoers flocking to the likes of Independence Day, Ender's Game, The Terminator, or The Matrix. To deviate from the norm takes a little extra work, but one way directors can suggest a different route is with a short format proof-of-concept sales pitch. Created with nearly 40,000 in Kickstarter funding, "Rise" is a short film aspiring to feature length. Its central theme is to Terminator what District 9 was to Independence Day.

Automation is a growing phenomenon within many areas of scientific development especially within the area of research and development of new medicines. The pharmaceutical industry is constantly striving to create new drugs to combat and treat these diseases because of the research timescales and costs involved it's an increasingly difficult challenge and therefore improving the speed of the drug recovery process is of paramount importance. At The University of Manchester, a team of scientists has developed EVE, a scientist robot. EVE uses Artificial Intelligence to identify, sort and separate the compounds which can then help researchers narrow down new drug candidates faster. Artificial intelligence that robots like EVE possess ensures that the speed at which they can process formulae and combinations is much faster than the speed at which a human brain can function.

Actor and writer Wil Wheaton wants to "add an A to the STEM acronym and make it STEAM." He'll be speaking at the USA Science and Engineering Festival April 16-17 in Washington about why he thinks the arts should be represented in the acronym commonly used when referring to the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Wheaton, 43, best known for his role as Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in the 1980s and '90s and more recently as a fictionalized version of himself on "The Big Bang Theory," says that he has always been fascinated by science and technology, and has made it a goal of his to ensure that kids get the encouragement they need to pursue those fields. Wheaton spoke with U.S. News by phone about why he got involved in the festival, how science fiction and fact have shaped his life and career and why he thinks it should be "science, technology, engineering, arts and math." How did you get involved with the USA Science and Engineering Festival?

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your low-cost Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. The Super Mini Cheetah was developed at MIT as a "low-cost, easily replicable" quadruped robot platform. The MIT Super Mini Cheetah is an inexpensive and lightweight quadrupedal robot that is capable of behaviors such as running, walking, jumping and turning.