Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic added to the urgency of the meeting by issuing a report calling for a complete ban on autonomous killer robots. It would undermine human dignity to be killed by a machine that can't understand the value of human life. "It would undermine human dignity to be killed by a machine that can't understand the value of human life," she says. The next meeting in Geneva is set for December, when a U.N. group will decide whether to formally start developing new international law governing killer robots.

An autonomous robot security guard equipped with weapons and intelligent video analysis equipment has been unveiled in China. The AnBot is China's first "intelligent security robot," according to state newspaper People's Daily, and was developed by the National Defense University. The 1.49m, 78kg machine has a top speed of 11mph (18km/h), as well as "sensors that mimic the human brain, eyes and ears," the article stated. The droid was on show at the Chongqing Hi-Tech Fair last week and is expected to be used to patrol areas prone to civil unrest or violence. "AnBot has a high degree of autonomy," Xiao Xiangjiang from the National Defense University said at the event.

North Korea on Friday accused U.S. soldiers of trying to provoke its frontline troops with "disgusting" acts and encouraging South Korean soldiers to aim their guns at the North. A North Korean military statement warned U.S. soldiers to stop what it called "hooliganism" at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom or they'll meet a "dog's death any time and any place." "GIs hurled fully armed MPs of the South Korean puppet army into perpetrating such dangerous provocations as aiming at" the North Korean military side last week, said the statement carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency. It said U.S. troops pointed their fingers at North Korean soldiers and made strange noises and unspecified "disgusting" facial expressions. North Korea occasionally accuses South Korean and U.S. troops of trying to provoke its border troops and vice versa.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

It was a fall night in 2006, when Bradley Waldroup walked out of his rural trailer in southeastern Tennessee, carrying his .22 His estranged wife and her friend, Leslie Bradshaw, had just pulled up to drop off the Waldroups' four children. Waldroup began arguing with his wife and Bradshaw, who was unloading the car. He used a knife to cut her head open. He then chased his wife with the knife and a machete, managing to slice off one of her pinkies before dragging her into the trailer. There, he told their frightened children, "Come tell your mama goodbye," because it was the last time they'd ever see her. Miraculously, his wife managed to slip his grasp and escape.

WASHINGTON – A man who threatened to blow up a local Baltimore TV station Thursday dressed head-to-toe in an animal costume was carrying chocolate bars made to resemble an explosive device, police said. The 25-year-old was in "serious but stable condition" at a local hospital after police shot him several times when he emerged from the building and walked toward them, Baltimore police spokesman T.J. Smith told reporters during a news conference. Police used a robot to disarm the man as he lay injured on the ground after being shot, which is when they discovered that his bombs were fake. "Those devices were actually candy bars wrapped in aluminum foil with wiring connecting each of them," Smith said. The authorities were alerted at 1:20 p.m. (1720 GMT) after the man set what was believed to be his own car on fire just outside the FOX45 station before entering the building.

The robotic skull of a T-600 cyborg used in the movie Terminator 3. Eduardo Parra/Getty Images hide caption The robotic skull of a T-600 cyborg used in the movie Terminator 3. In his lab at George Mason University in Virginia, Sean Luke has all kinds of robots: big ones with wheels, medium ones that look like humans, and then he has a couple of dozen that look like small, metal boxes. He and his team at the Autonomous Robotics Lab are training those little ones to work together without the help of a human. In the future, Luke and his team hope those little robots can work like ants -- in teams of hundreds, for example, to build houses, or help search for survivors after a disaster. "These things are changing very rapidly and they're changing much faster than we sort of expected them to be changing recently," Luke says. New algorithms and huge new databases are allowing robots to navigate complex spaces, and artificial intelligence just achieved a victory few thought would ever happen: A computer made by Google beat a professional human in a match of Go.

Oxford's Global Priorities Project has compiled a list of catastrophes--both natural and self-inflicted--that could kill off 10 percent or more of the human population. It's a real buzzkill of a report and it says that any of these catastrophes could happen within the next five years. Titled "Global Catastrophic Risks 2016," the report ranks the most dangerous threats facing our civilization according to probability. The likeliest risks include nuclear war and pandemics (both natural and deliberately engineered), followed by disasters stemming from runaway climate change, geoengineering run amok, and disruptions posed by artificial intelligence. The report also included low-probability--but high impact--events, like asteroid impacts and supervolcanic eruptions.

Google's self-driving car just got a boost from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal auto safety and standards regulators should set rules governing self-driving cars -- not state agencies that may not have the technological know-how to assess the rapidly evolving technology. That was the message delivered to federal administrators Wednesday by Chris Urmson, the chief architect of Google's seven-year-old autonomous car program. Urmson was one of a variety of auto experts speaking at a Stanford University forum organized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is soliciting comments as it aims to establish guidelines later this summer for companies developing autonomous cars. The event took place the day after Google announced it was part of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, a lobbying group of autonomous-car focused companies that also includes Ford, Lyft, Uber and Volvo.

In the 2004 film I, Robot, Will Smith's character Detective Spooner harbors a deep grudge for all things technological -- and turns out to be justified after a new generation of robots engage in a full out, summer blockbuster-style revolt against their human creators. Why was Detective Spooner such a Luddite–even before the Robots' vicious revolt? Much of his resentment stems from a car accident he endured in which a robot saved his life instead of a little girl's. The robot's decision haunts Smith's character throughout the movie; he feels the decision lacked emotion, and what one might call'humanity'. "I was the logical choice," he says. "(The robot) calculated that I had a 45% chance of survival. Sarah only had an 11% chance." He continues, dramatically, "But that was somebody's baby. A human being would've known that."