If its first quarter is anything to go by, 2016 may be shaping up historically as the 1491 of space discovery. The month preceding Valentine's Day alone provided what would once have been a year's worth of cosmic news. Blue Origin, the aerospace company owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, took one giant leap toward a new Age of Discovery by relaunching and landing a rocket that had already made a round-trip journey through the stratosphere – a revolutionary moment in private space exploration. A pair of researchers kicked off a frenzied planet hunt by demonstrating that a massive, heretofore undetected planet could be lurking on the outer edge of our solar system. Cosmologist Stephen Hawking suggested that unforeseen effects of rapid scientific progress might, paradoxically, cause the extinction of life on Earth in the next thousand years or so, adding, "By that time, we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race." And scientists announced they'd detected gravitational waves, evidence of a billion-year-old collision between black holes, thus confirming the final and most obscure principle of Einstein's theory of relativity – and opening a window that may soon offer a glimpse of the universe's very creation.

Inc. (AMZN - Analyst Report) acquired California-based startup Orbeus last year to enhance its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. The financial terms of the deal haven't been disclosed yet. Orbeus has carved its niche in image processing by using AI. This technology allows other software developers to add facial or object recognition to their own products. The use of artificial intelligence for image recognition has been gaining popularity in the tech sector as an increasing number of people are finding uses for it.

Nvidia introduces the DGX-1, a box that houses eight Tesla P100 cards with 16 GB of memory each. Touted as'world's first deep learning supercomputer,' it's designed to provide the computing needs of virtual reality and artificial intelligence researchers. Nvidia takes the wraps off the DGX-1, touting it as the "world's first deep learning supercomputer" that can deliver the computing needs of virtual reality developers and artificial intelligence researchers. Considering how the hardware maker already developed specialized GPU units for deep learning software, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that it's going further on that front. "The DGX-1 is easy to deploy and was created for one purpose: to unlock the powers of superhuman capabilities and apply them to problems that were once unsolvable," Jen-Hsun Huang, cofounder and CEO of Nvidia, says, noting that researchers will no longer have to rely solely on home-built computing solutions.

Self-driving cars may be coming sooner than you think! Google has expanded their testing program to Phoenix! Rob Smith (@robsmithonline) fills you in on all the new developments. In this May 13, 2015, file photo, Google's self-driving Lexus car drives along the street during a demonstration at the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif. The company is now testing self-driving cars in the metro Phoenix area. PHOENIX -- Google has brought its self-driving vehicles to the Phoenix area to see how the technology performs amid crippling summer heat and, if researchers are lucky, a giant dust storm or two.

If you're an expert, go straight here to read the paper. Last year, with Deep Dream (June 2015) and Style Networks (August 2015), the idea that deep learning may become a tool for Art entered the public consciousness. Generative algorithms based on Neural Networks so far haven't been the most predictable or easiest to understand, but when they work -- by combination of skill or luck -- the quality of the output is second to none! It took until 2016 for those techniques to be turned into tools that are useful for artists, starting with this paper we call Neural Patches (January 2016) that lets the algorithm process images in a context-sensitive manner. Now, when style transfer techniques are extended with controls and annotations, they can process images in a meaningful way: reducing glitches and increasing user control.

Back in Hannover Messe 2011, Germany announced the Industry 4.0 concept and initiated the world's fourth industrial revolution. Since then, Hannover Messe has become a focal point for Industry 4.0 innovations. As Hannover Messe 2016 closes in, the exhibition will once again be surrounded by various Industry 4.0-related hot topics such as integrated industry, smart manufacturing and more. Coming soon on April 25 to 29, Hannover Messe 2016 will be based on the theme "Integrated Industry – Discover Solutions", which aims to provide an interpretation of the smart manufacturing model of Industry 4.0. As a Taiwanese company with deep expertise in IoT automation, NEXCOM has planned four themed demonstrations that map out a complete solution blueprint for industry 4.0 in the upcoming event. Joe Lin, General Manager of NEXCOM's IoT Automation Solutions Business Group, states, "Early Industry 4.0 solutions focused on the lower layers of factory communication where IoT gateways were used to integrate different industrial protocols, bridging the Industry 4.0 last mile connection to fulfill the'connected' concept.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digitisation will change the future of cars, challenge traditional business models and create immense potential for innovation. In future, cars will be cognitive not only will they recognize voices and be able to optimise the journey, they will also incorporate other cognitive technologies of AI - computer vision, machine learning, rules based systems as well as planning and scheduling. It is around these subjects that Frost & Sullivan's Intelligent Mobility event - taking place in London on the 28th and 29th of June - will evolve. Today, there are 4.4 million taxis globally. In 2020 this number is expected to reach 5.5 million.

Amazon.com Inc. acquired artificial-intelligence startup Orbeus Inc. last fall, sources told Bloomberg, though neither company has announced the deal and wouldn't comment. Orbeus offers artificial intelligence-powered photo-recognition technology called ReKognition that automatically identifies and categorizes photo content. Other companies are making similar moves to acquire AI startups: Apple acquired facial-recognition company Emotient Inc. in January and Salesforce Monday said it had acquired image-recognition startup MetaMind. Amazon's Web Services (AWS) cloud-computing unit is widely seen as supporting its retail profits, which have lagged behind costs. Amazon's net sales grew 21.7% to 35.75 billion in the fourth quarter, compared to sales from AWS that increased 69.4% to 2.41 billion.

Artificial intelligence can master the world's most complicated board game, beating South Korean Go grandmaster Lee Se-dol in the process. But can it predict the winner of a reality TV singing contest? That is the challenge facing "Ai", an artificial intelligence programme developed by Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of China's e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba. This Friday, Ai will attempt to prove that it can perceive something as subjective as the aesthetic beauty of musical notes by predicting the winner of Hunan TV's "I'm a Singer". The broadcaster is named after the southern Chinese province in which it is based.

Artificial intelligence and robots are hot topics right now, but will we ever get to the stage we saw 50 years ago on "The Jetsons," where your typical household could have a robotic maid named Rosie? Robotics pioneer David Hanson says yes, and he thinks it'll take less than 50 more years. That's the prediction he delivered on Wednesday during a Skype-enabled panel presentation on the future of AI and robotics in Seattle, sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Northwest. A veteran of Disney's imagineering operation, Hanson has produced custom-made robot heads that are capable of eerily humanlike expressions. Now Hanson has relocated to Hong Kong, where he's gearing up to unveil a line of production-model robots that take advantage of recent AI advances as well as the toymaking prowess of the Pearl River Delta.