USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham thinks the new gesture controlled DJI Spark drone is the wave of the future in computing. Today, we move to the hands. In one of the most jaw-dropping tech demos of the year, drone manufacturer DJI this week showed off a new quadcopter that can be flown with hand gestures. Move your palm left to fly that way, extend your hand to land it. As someone who spends a lot of time flying drones and juggling with video-game like controllers to operate them, this is the holy grail. No more worries about connections and keeping my head down to operate--just wave my hands in the air and let the drone soar.

It sounds absurd to think artificial intelligence could be used to generate a more human-like customer experience. But that's exactly how it's now being used. AI analyses huge amounts of behavioural and emotional data in a bid to communicate with us and deliver brand experiences that are more personalised and predictive. When Unilever turns to an AI bot to boost Lipton tea sales, GlaxoSmithKline uses machine-learning to dispense flu advice through interactive ads and Dutch airline KLM trials machine-learning in its social media chatbot for flyers, you know times are a changing. "AI is offering retailers new ways to make shopping hassle free. Modern cognitive systems can understand, reason, learn and interact in similar ways to a human being. This is a very fast-moving area," says Tony Maile, European retail leader at IBM Cognitive Solutions.

As machine learning matures, we're finding more and more applications for the technology, beyond the niche and novelty. It's even starting to encroach on the jobs of designers and programmers, if Tony Beltramelli's research project "pix2code" is anything to go by. As the video above shows, using a trained neural network Beltramelli is able to input an image of a user interface and the program will output code (either for iOS, Android or web) of that UI. According to Beltramelli, the current iteration is able to produce results with 77 per cent accuracy. Of course, the idea behind pix2code is to simply show what's possible -- it's in no way ready for prime time.

Whether if it's Facebook Messenger, Twitter's Direct Messaging chatbot, Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Google's Allo, or WhatsApp, there's no shortage of services that offer integrated bots that can handle everything from customer service, booking airline tickets or hotel rooms, and shopping online. Interacting with machines may seem awkward at first, but this conversational eCommerce is beneficial for both customers and businesses since bots can solve problems and speed up repetitive tasks. Bots aren't just limited to eCommerce apps or sites. The Fintech industry is also exploring the endless opportunities that bots may present. For example, banks like Santander and Bank of America are planning on using bots to create one-to-one conversations, while others believe that bots will be used to onboard customers and aid them with important financial decisions.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2016. Developed and published by the indie studio Hello Games, 'No Man's Sky' is built around a procedurally generated deterministic open universe that contains a staggering 18.4 quintillion planets. The game also boasts complete solar systems, varied weather systems, detailed flora and fauna, fascinating alien creatures, as well as fully functioning buildings and spacecraft. Indeed, No Man's Sky plots the position of stars and their stellar classification, while pseudorandom numbers generated from the position of each star are used to determine the planetary system and corresponding features. "The universe begins with a single input, an arbitrary numerical seed--the phone number of one of the programmers. That number is mathematically mutated into more seeds by a cascading series of algorithms--a computerized pseudo-randomness generator," Roc Morin of The Atlantic explained in a detailed article about the game.

A man walks into a dermatologist's practice… He's deeply concerned; he has an illness that the doctor doesn't recognise. After some research online and a discussion with her colleagues at the practice, it turns out that it's a rare complaint. The doctor then starts looking at possible medications, comparing drug side effects that might react adversely with the patient's current prescriptions. But what if the doctor had a powerful resource at her disposal: a repository of medical information and insights? What if she also had access to smart, accurate clinical decision support and the kind of intelligent predictive analytics that could cut down the time spent looking for answers and help her get straight to diagnosing and treating the patient's problem…what if they had the help of Artificial Intelligence?

This is the face of desperation. Ke Jie, the world's best human Go player, lost two games against a new version of Google's AlphaGo on May 25. This means AlphaGo has already secured victory in the three-part match. The third game will take place Saturday (May 27), during the ongoing "Future of Go" summit in Wuzhen, China, where the game was born. The 19-year old Chinese player looked exasperated during his second match against Google's artificial intelligence player.

The number of settings on a high-end DSLR or mirrorless camera can be truly overwhelming, even for experienced photographers. That's why Montana-based software developer Ryan Stout created the Arsenal. It's an electronic module that gets plugged into your camera, where it uses artificial intelligence to create the "perfect" shot. Once it's mounted on the hot shoe, plugged in, and wirelessly fired up via an iOS/Android app, the Arsenal assesses the camera's current shot. It does this by comparing it to a database of thousands of other photos in which the camera settings are known, looking for shots that are most similar to the present one.

A disembodied voice sounded over a loudspeaker. Take cover," it warned to anyone within earshot. Then, the sirens began to wail. Erin Delaney assumed it was a drill. She peeked down the hallway to see how other people were responding. Then she hit the deck. The NATO base in Kabul where Delaney had been working for weeks was being attacked. Delaney, 24, had never had any military training. She grew up in San Diego, traveled up the coast for college at UC Berkeley, and spent the next two years nestled in the safe, Tesla-filled San Francisco bubble, working in the compliance department at Dropbox. Now, with her nose to the ground, she was getting a taste--however brief--of life in a war zone. She flipped over the visitor's badge she'd received when she first arrived at the base. In case of attack, it said, she should stay on the ground for two minutes. Assuming nothing dire happened, she was to shelter in place until the shelling stopped. So, for about an hour, that's what she did.

If you have an extra day off, then that may provide time to catch up on our new Tomorrow section, plus the latest Google Search feature and Apple's plan for AI. Let's talk about the future.Welcome to Tomorrow, the home of stuff that hasn't happened yet This week we launched a brand new section on Engadget, which is dedicated to bringing the future into focus. Our launch week stories have covered everything from prosthetics to binge watching to the art of nuclear war -- and there's much more to come. You think?Apple is reportedly working on a dedicated mobile chip for AI On-device machine learning is suddenly a highlight feature for smartphones, and unsurprisingly there are rumors Apple is going to improve the iPhone's capabilities in that area. Google and Qualcomm have a bit of a head start in AI, but we've already seen the folks in Cupertino whip up dedicated hardware to boost things like motion tracking and wireless audio.