Humanoid robot'Pepper' will soon be taking orders in Pizza Hut locations across Asia. MasterCard announced this week that it is teaming up with SoftBanks Robotics and Pizza Hut Asia to launch a new commerce app for the customer service bot. Pepper will be able to make recommendations and complete transactions, and is expected to begin employment by the end of this year. Humanoid robot'Pepper' will soon be taking orders in Pizza Huts in Asia. MasterCard announced this week that it is teaming up with SoftBanks Robotics and Pizza Hut Asia to launch a new commerce app for the bot.

The personal data of nearly 70,000 OKCupid users has been put online for anyone to see – not by hackers, but researchers. The group scraped information from the dating site and uploaded a paper discussing their findings to an online forum that encourages researchers to share raw social science data. Although no first names were released, other information such as sexual turn-ons, orientation, user names and location were - giving enough clues to figure out their real identities. Personal data of nearly 70,000 OKCupid users has been leaked – not by hackers, but researchers. The information scraped about the site's members was username, age, gender, religious astrology, number of photos and more – a total of 36 variables.

Humans have been taking a beating from computers lately. The 4-1 defeat of Go grandmaster Lee Se-Dol by Google's AlphaGo artificial intelligence (AI) is only the latest in a string of pursuits in which technology has triumphed over humanity. Self-driving cars are already less accident-prone than human drivers, the TV quiz show Jeopardy! is a lost cause, and in chess humans have fallen so woefully behind computers that a recent international tournament was won by a mobile phone. Researchers from Western Sydney University two reasons why AIs are'our greatest threat. The first being they are trained with logic and heuristics.

Microsoft has officially acquired the makers of predictive keyboard mobile app SwiftKey. The London-based start-up behind the app has been brought into the Microsoft fold in a deal worth an estimated $250 million (£174m). Microsoft is believed to have a keen interest in the firm's artificial intelligence research, including its recently launched Neural Alpha app, which could make its Cortana assistant more accurate. The London-based start-up behind the SwiftKey predictive keyboard app (pictured) has been bought by Microsoft in a deal worth $250 million (£174m). The app is available in over 100 languages, including Arabic, Russian, Thai and Afrikaans, and predicts text as it learns from the user's swipes and key strokes SwiftKey was started by Cambridge graduates in 2008, launching its predictive auto-correcting keyboard app on Android in 2010 and iOS in 2014.

Microsoft is developing a last-gasp'iPhone killer' in its bid to take on Apple and Google. Its current Windows Phone devices have failed to attract buyers - but the firm thinks it has one last chance at success. The firm hopes its'Surface Phone' could become as popular as the Surface tablet. Its current Windows Phone devices have failed to attract buyers - but Microsoft thinks it has one last chance at success. 'We need some sort of spiritual equivalent on the phone side, that doesn't just feel like a phone for people who love Windows,' Microsoft's CMO Chris Capossela said.

Six months after Microsoft announced plans to bring Cortana to iOS, the digital concierge has officially started beta testing on Apple's platform. The software company has selected 2,000 iPhone users to participate in the testing of Cortana, which combines features from Siri and Google Now into one package. Six months after Microsoft announced plans to bring Cortana to iOS, the digital concierge has officially started beta testing on Apple's platform. The software company has selected 2,000 iPhone users to participate in the testing of Cortana, which combines features from Siri and Google Now into one package. There are two ways to use Cortana: you can use voice commands, or you can type out your commands in the Start Menu.

A sinister threat is brewing deep inside the technology laboratories of Silicon Valley. Artificial Intelligence, disguised as helpful digital assistants and self-driving vehicles, is gaining a foothold – and it could one day spell the end for mankind. This is according to Stephen Hawking who has warned that humanity faces an uncertain future as technology learns to think for itself and adapt to its environment. A group of scientists and entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking (pictured), have signed an open letter promising to ensure AI research benefits humanity. Google has set up an ethics board to oversee its work in artificial intelligence.

Forget HAL, the computer in "2001: A Space Odyssey," or JARVIS, the robotic butler of fictional billionaire Tony Stark. With a voice command like this, a homeowner can activate a Bluetooth-controlled lock through Alexa, Amazon's voice assistant, August Home, the smart-lock maker, announced Thursday. The team up between August and Amazon is another step in expanding how "smart" a home can become at a reasonable price. Though gadgets to control, for instance, a house's lights, thermostat, and audio system, have been around for decades, they could only be operated at first through personal computers and control pads, and eventually tablets and smartphones. Amazon popularized the voice control of smart homes when it released Alexa in 2014.

"You no longer need an Alexa-enabled device to test your skills. Developers worldwide can use Echosim.io to experience Alexa." Alexa originated as the voice behind the increasingly popular Amazon Echo and has developed since into a powerful platform for voice-activated commands. In Echo form, Alexa can access music streaming services, control lighting and heat, order pizza, or answer simple, Googlable questions. The potential is also there for Alexa to do a lot more. With the help of some coding knowledge, customers can create their own custom commands Alexa can respond to – a big strength of the platform that means updates and improvements will be regularly created and added. Developer attraction could also be an edge for Amazon's Echo as rival tech companies like Google come out with their own versions.

Some of the people behind Siri, the voice of the iPhone's virtual assistant app, have developed a savvier bot called Viv. Viv reportedly can order a pizza with your favorite toppings, hail a taxi ride to the dentist, or order flowers for your mom by drawing on data from other web services, such as FTD, Uber, and GrubHub, with little typing, clicking, or further input from you. Instead of pre-programming scripted responses to anticipated questions, as is common with Siri and other services, Viv's artificial intelligence will let her learn her users' preferences over time, say company executives. "Tell Viv what you want and it will orchestrate this massive network of services that will take care of it," Dag Kittlaus, Viv's chief executive, told the Guardian. The bot, which The Washington Post called "one of the most highly anticipated technologies expected to come out of a start-up this year," will make its first public appearance at a conference on Monday.