Like a corporation, robots will soon be able to hold value. "We see with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies situations where the technology allows one person to control one-fifth of an asset," the Bloq founder explained, referring to a multi-signature transaction protocol where three out of five private key holders must sign off for a transaction to be executed. "What if the asset-holders were robot shareholders in a corporation or property? And Bitcoin helps with that. Cryptocurrency startups are building autonomous agents right now."

For its CES 2017 presentation, Toyota is inviting people to imagine a future where artificial intelligence makes cars less robotic and more human. A fast emerging trend from this year's tech extravaganza is the use by carmakers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a way of accelerating the development of autonomous vehicles. If a car can learn from its errors and from its owner, it will be able to navigate spaces and terrains without mapping and will be able to make the right decision if a familiar route suddenly changes. Toyota's Concept-i car can conceivably do all of those things, but it will do so in a way that still makes the driver feel like they're in complete control. "At Toyota, we recognise that the important question isn't whether future vehicles will be equipped with automated or connected technologies," said Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota.

After two days of media-only events, the Consumer Electronic Show officially began with thousands of innovative gadgets from both well known names and emerging brands. Smart assistants have so far been a major theme of the show, but the first day also brought video-recording glasses, adorable robots, and lots of virtual reality. Depending on Olly's mood, its face will light up in different colors. It also swivels around on its base to look at you when you're speaking to create a more personal experience, the Olly team told Dailymail.com Among the many devices on display today was the'emotional' Olly smart assistant.

A month ago, I tried A/B testing to see how different "treatments" or input parameters might result in longer sleep for our twins -- and of course by proxy, us. Through this, I found that sleep patterns were fairly erratic and didn't find much that correlated strongly to increased sleep. As time went on, they started more largely on their own naturally. However, now that they have reached four months, they've begun the apparently common but rarely discussed sleep regression phase. I once again found myself desperate for more sleep.

Among the monstrous number of announcements to come out of CES this week a major battle is emerging in the smart home arena. The potential of IoT has never been in question, though the role of smart homes is one which is yet to wow the mass market. The idea is great, but market penetration has been slow. IoT light bulbs, or smart fridges have been around for quite a while, but uptake has not been exceptional. With the introduction of personal assistants as part of the smart home hub, the tide is slowly beginning to turn however.

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Artificial intelligence, or AI, seems to be the most buzzed-about topic in technology lately. It's helping display the right ads within your social network, recommend the next product to buy from your favorite online retailer, and--soon--direct your autonomous car around town. In other words, every Fortune 500 executive should be thinking about how best to use AI within his or her own company. Baidu chief scientist Andrew Ng, speaking at a Fortune Brainstorm Tech dinner at The Bellagio in Las Vegas, believes CEOs should go further. "You need a chief AI officer," Ng told Fortune assistant managing editor Adam Lashinsky. "If you have a lot of data and you want to create value from that data one of the things you might consider is building up an AI team."

This post is part of the Learning Machine Learning series. It's based on Chapter 1 and 2 of Python Machine Learning. Machine learning can be intimidating for a newcomer. The concept of a machine learning things alone is quite abstract. How does that work in practice?

A future in which human workers are replaced by machines is about to become a reality at an insurance firm in Japan, where more than 30 employees are being laid off and replaced with an artificial intelligence system that can calculate payouts to policyholders. Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance believes it will increase productivity by 30% and see a return on its investment in less than two years. The firm said it would save about 140m yen (£1m) a year after the 200m yen (£1.4m) AI system is installed this month. Maintaining it will cost about 15m yen (£100k) a year. The move is unlikely to be welcomed, however, by 34 employees who will be made redundant by the end of March.

Machine Learning is all about creating an artificial brain to perform a task by itself. In most cases that task is Prediction. To do these predictions, there are many technical options available. One popular question would be, whether to use Python or R. But before heading there, it is more important to understand some of the fundamental concepts to get started.