Self-driving cars may seem like a futurist's fantasy, but autonomous vehicles are already on the road today. So what kind of technology do they use, and what is the future of the self-driving car? We're here to help explain.

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

Customers hoping to buy a new phone in Tokyo are being met with a team of'emotional' robots ready to answer their questions. SoftBank has replaced staff with 10 humanoid Pepper robots in the city's first Pepper Phone Shop. The robots can answer questions, give suggestions and chat to customers by reading their tone of voice and facial expressions. SoftBank has replaced staff with a team of 10 humanoid Pepper robots in the city's first Pepper Phone Shop (picutred). It is the world's first store to be exclusively staffed by machines and will be open until 30 March.

Following in the wake of the recent trouncing of humans by artificial intelligence platform AlphaGo, Google has announced the launch of a cloud-based machine learning platform. The search giant's new large-scale platform will be able to learn and make predictions'across a whole variety of scenarios', and is reminiscent of the fictional Skynet service from Terminator. A limited preview of the service is now available for users to build their own machine-learning models'that work on any type of data, of any size'. Following in the wake of the recent trouncing of humans by artificial intelligence platform AlphaGo, Google has announced the launch of a cloud-based machine learning platform. The search giant's new large-scale platform will be able to learn and make predictions'across a whole variety of scenarios' A limited preview of the service is now available for users to build their own machine-learning models'that work on any type of data, of any size'.

Online shopping and purchases are expected to rise by 78 percent this year as aggressive marketing of merchandise have risen higher than ever, a report says. "Unfazed by the slowdown, average online purchases are expected to increase by 78 percent in 2016 from 66 percent in 2015 due to attractive deals and aggressive marketing of an ever-expanding range of merchandise from clothes to jewellery, from electronics to books," said the Assocham-PwC report. With the growth of e-commerce sector, the possibilities and options for simplicity are what can bring multiple variations regardless of the prices floating in the online market. Searchub Inc., considering the prospect of the e-commerce and online shopping market developed a platform called Searchub that uses machine learning algorithms to offer users a truly personalized shopping experience. Connecting retailers with the customers through recommendation and big data, the platform performs search and displays result according to the user's taste, style and their social profile.

As major technology companies in the world are moving towards enhancing their research on machine learning and ramping up its application at various level increases, Google announced at a recent "GCPNEXT16," a Google Cloud Platform Global User Conference, that it is making a new machine learning platform available to developers. Google believes that the machine learning is "what's next," TechCrunch reported. The search giant uses Google Cloud Machine Learning in various applications, namely Photos (image search), the Google app (voice search), Translate, and Inbox (Smart Reply). It noted that the platform is available "as a cloud service to bring unmatched scale and speed" business applications, the company said on the product's official page. This Google platform will help developers "build accurate, large scale machine learning models in a short amount of time," the website noted.

Speaking at Google Cloud Platform in San Francisco, the chairman of Alphabet and former Google CEO highlighted artificial intelligence as the "next evolution" in computing. This will will spur the creation of new apps and services, he said. "Machine learning and crowdsourcing data will be the basis and fundamentals of every successful, huge IPO win in five years, in the same sense that the transition to [mobile] apps five years ago created the modern corporations of Uber, SnapChat and others." Schmidt highlighted Google AlphaGo - which defeated Go champion Lee Sedol last week - as an example of the power of artificial intelligence. See also: Google DeepMind: What is it, how does it work and should you be scared?

Following in the wake of the recent trouncing of humans by artificial intelligence platform AlphaGo, Google has announced the launch of a cloud-based machine learning platform. The search giant's new large-scale platform will be able to learn and make predictions'across a whole variety of scenarios', and is reminiscent of the fictional Skynet service from Terminator. A limited preview of the service is now available for users to build their own machine-learning models'that work on any type of data, of any size'. Following in the wake of the recent trouncing of humans by artificial intelligence platform AlphaGo, Google has announced the launch of a cloud-based machine learning platform. The search giant's new large-scale platform will be able to learn and make predictions'across a whole variety of scenarios' A limited preview of the service is now available for users to build their own machine-learning models'that work on any type of data, of any size'.

Even though it can't be widely generalized, it's still a very big deal. To put Google's AlphaGo win in perspective, let's consider the other two major victories of machines over humans in recent com... This is because AlphaGo displayed true cognition. Keep in mind we're not talking about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) but it is Artificial Special Intelligence (ASI). Fairly significant, but not nearly as significant as presented in the press.

Global technology leaders and senior executives from around the world spoke on a range of topics, including Digital India, Smart Cities, Make in India, Skill India and cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, 3D printing, drones, robotics, robotic surgeries and genomics, at the two-day EmTech India 2016 event, held in New Delhi on 18 and 19 March. The event was organized by Mint and MIT Technology Review, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The speakers included Jack Hidary, senior adviser at Google X Labs; Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman of Microsoft India; and Sharad Sharma, co-founder of think tank iSPIRT. The full list can be accessed at emtech.livemint.com/speakers. Here are edited excerpts from their speeches. A moonshot is an initiative that accompanies a goal that was previously thought to be near impossible. Moonshot philosophy sounds like it is quite radical and risky, but actually it is low-risk. That is because it attracts the best human capital and finance. Moonshot approaches do a few things. First, they attract the best human capital, which is a key driver of growth. They attract the best financial capital as well; capital from big and long-term thinkers. One describes India as a moonshot nation. India itself is going through a radical transformation--the likes of what we have never seen. This is very different to what is happening in China or any other country in the world. It is a combination of smartphones, digital payments, broadband and power of energy storage coming together. Smartphones ease the access to the Internet and open up users to mobile apps and that really changes the name of the game.