Last month we heard about DRU, the Domino's delivery robot that's getting a trial run in Australia. The idea may seem silly, but some new restaurant industry numbers highlight the growing importance of food delivery in an age when consumers expect online ordering and rapid to-their-door service. As consumers get more comfortable with autonomous delivery (which is on the way, despite lots of skepticism), a restaurant industry that already uses state of the art logistics services could begin adding delivery robots to their operations in the next decade. According to information provided by 1010data, our hunger for the pies is growing. Domino's, Pizza Hut, and Papa John's combined to account for 45.1% of total food delivery sales, up from 40.3% in 2014.

The latest animated video from The School of Life gently postulates that the technology of the future will be able to read moods, detect emotional states and help humans communicate the nebulous world of feelings through the ever-advancing strides being made in artificial intelligence. One such emotional technology tool could be the yet-to-be-invented Socrates Mood Reader. Named after the world's greatest early philosopher Socrates who famously said that the first philosophical priority is to know yourself. Socrates will be a piece of wearable emotional technology that will make up for a failures of self-knowledge in real time. We imagine it as a kind of wearable life coach with the total understanding of our mental health, who we are and what we need to thrive emotionally at key moments.

Creativity is alive and well at Samsung, which is developing several cool devices in its labs, including a home companion robot called Otto. The multi-talented robot can answer questions and double as a part-time security system when needed. It is expected to be demonstrated at the Samsung Developer Conference this week in San Francisco. Functionally, Otto is similar in some ways to Amazon Echo, featuring an interactive speaker that can answer questions, order products and play music. But the robot also includes a "head" that hosts a high-definition camera and a display.

It's easy to imagine robots as job-stealing nemeses that will ultimately unseat human workers. In an interview with Computerworld Thursday, Tom Davenport, co-author of the forthcoming book Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines, made the case for seeing artificial intelligence and robotics not as a threat in the workplace but as an advantage. As more organizations begin to adopt AI and robotic systems, workers who regard these new technologies not as murderous Cylons to be feared but as tools designed to make them more productive and efficient at their own job will fare best. "I think that in many cases, we'll be working with these machines as colleagues," Davenport told Computerworld. "I think the people who prosper will be the ones who like working with machines." This is where Computerworld trotted out the obligatory eyebrow-raising statistics: The Bank of England warned about robots assuming half of all U.S. and British jobs during the coming 20 years, leaving 95 million people unemployed.

Intellectually, many of us know the health and environmental benefits of a plant-based diet, but switching over can be daunting, especially if one hasn't had too much experience with cooking vegetarian or vegan dishes, and also if the tastebuds haven't really gotten used to new flavours. That's why many people may add in some mock meats, just to ease the transition, though whether it actually tastes good and "real" enough is up for debate. Now a team of Chilean scientists is adding technology to the mix, using artificial intelligence to create smarter and better-tasting meat replacements. Founders Matias Muchnick, Karim Pichara and biochemist Isidora Silva of food-tech startup The Not Company are leveraging recent developments in deep learning algorithms to create entirely plant-based foods that are healthy for people, and won't have the huge ecological impact of meat. Muchnick, who is an engineer by training, explains the team's motivation behind their AI model, named Giuseppe: When you get behind the scenes of the food industry, you don't like what you see.

Banking giant UBS recently gathered clients, staffers and tech experts who have a passion for helping those diagnosed with autism. SAN FRANCISCO – Some autism advocates are hopeful technology, from robots to custom-programmed Google Glass, can help individuals with the complex brain condition. "Technology can lead an autistic person to contribute to society when doing so face to face is difficult," said Scott Badesch, CEO of the Autism Society, addressing 50 invited guests who were brought together by banking giant UBS' philanthropic wing here last week. Badesch and others at the gathering -- lab researchers and autism advocacy group leaders, many of whom are parents of autistic children -- have high hopes emerging technology can help those afflicted with autism spectrum disorder interact with others and more fully participate in the world. As evidence of the power of tech to help, Badesch another others pointed to a recent YouTube video called "Dillan's Voice," in which an autistic teen speaks via a text-to-voice app on a tablet.

Comet Labs has assembled a coalition of investors and corporate partners to help accelerate product and customer development cycles for fast growing robotics and machine learning companies. Startups are paired with experienced mentors and are given access to industry partners and platform technology. The fund's partners include the world's largest global manufacturing, agriculture, and healthcare companies. About Comet Labs Comet Labs is an early-stage venture capital firm associated with a 300M fund, Legend Star. They work with startups developing solutions in specific industry verticals, as well as those building enabling technologies.

More than six billion dollars: That's how much health care providers and consumers will be spending every year on artificial intelligence tools by 2021--a tenfold increase from today--according to a new report from research firm Frost & Sullivan. AI will be everywhere--from diagnosing cancer to providing weight-loss coaching, says Venkat Rajan, who has the great title of global director for the company's Visionary Healthcare Program. "Prior to 2015, most of what was happening was sort of academic: pilot programs, exploratory, proof of concept-type stuff," he says. AI's ability to sort through scads of information, and remember everything it has ever seen, could enable a digital (and congenial) version of Dr. House, the brilliant diagnostician from the eponymous TV show, says Rajan. "At first, it's a complete mystery, it could be one of ten different things," he says, about the process in the show, and real life, called differential diagnosis. "And then he's able to sort through various issues, you know, illuminate certain factors on why it's not one of these other conditions, and he's able to pull something from memory that figures out ultimately what it is, and they can provide the appropriate treatment." Robots won't steal doctors' jobs, says Rajan, but they will spare overworked docs some of the dangerous fatigue that can lead to mistakes.

ToyTalk, the startup that mashed together Barbie and the Internet of Things and let your kids chat away with Thomas the Tank Engine for hours on end, is cashing out on the bot craze with a slight realignment of philosophy -- and a new name. "When working with children," the company's CEO Oren Jacob said, "you are beholden to some pretty strict laws, and ToyTalk as a company had to work diligently to ensure we toe the line." To do that, the company developed a whole toolset to enable writers to create narratives for children's toys. The toolset was called PullString, named after the string you can pull on some dolls to make them talk. The name is undoubtedly a nod to the Andy cowboy doll from Toy Story -- Jacob did head up Pixar's technical team as its CTO, after all.

In his newly published scan of the literature, expert Thomas B. Sheridan concludes that the time is ripe for human factors researchers to contribute scientific insights that can tackle the many challenges of human-robot interaction. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Emeritus Sheridan, who for decades has studied humans and automation, looked at self-driving cars and highly automated transit systems; routine tasks such as the delivery of packages in Amazon warehouses; devices that handle tasks in hazardous or inaccessible environments, such as the Fukushima nuclear plant; and robots that engage in social interaction (Barbies). In each case, he noted significant human factors challenges, particularly concerning safety. No human driver, he claims, will stay alert to take over control of a Google car quickly enough should the automation fail. Nor does self-driving car technology consider the value of social interaction between drivers such as eye contact and hand signals.