Robotics firm Boston Dynamics has unveiled the latest version of its highly-advanced Atlas robot, showing the machine performing parkour tricks over obstacles. Boston Dynamics describes Atlas as the "world's most dynamic humanoid," with previous videos showing the robot performing backflips. "The control software uses the whole body including legs, arms and torso, to marshal the energy and strength for jumping over the log and leaping up the steps without breaking its pace," the video's description states. A caretaker wearing a'HAL for care support' robot suit pushes a wheelchair at Shin-tomi nursing home in Tokyo. Residents follow moves made by humanoid robot'Pepper' during an afternoon exercise routine at Shin-tomi nursing home in Tokyo.

A video that appears to show a human-like robot walking slowly down a driveway has stoked fears of a robot apocalypse, receiving thousands of shares across social media. The 14-second clip has caught the attention of celebrities on Twitter, including the illusionist Derren Brown and Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh. Welsh compared the robot's gait to his after a night partying, tweeting: "Got a fright there. Thought that was 90's footage of me walking home from Pure or Turnmills after a night on the eckies." Brown simply tweeted: "WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE."

The robotics program at Disney has taken a giant, back-flipping leap forward with the unveiling of a humanoid robot capable of performing stunts just like a human. A video of the Stuntronics robot shows the autonomous machine launching into the air from a swing and performing several flips, before landing in a net. The unveiling of the acrobatic robot comes just one month after Disney revealed its much more rudimental Stickman robot. Both robots come out of Disney's Imagineering Research and Development department, which was set up a decade ago to explore virtual reality, robotics and other emerging technologies. The Stickman robot was the first step towards creating the human-scale robot, capable of performing backflips and other stunts.

The lights are going out at malls across the United States with more than 20 major retail bankruptcies in 2017. As of today, store closures have skyrocketed to 7,000 doors throughout the nation, affecting such iconic brands as Toys R Us, Walgreens, Gap, Sam's Club, The Children's Place, Hallmark, Stride Ride, Aeropostale, Wet Seal, The Limited and Walmart. At the same time, investment in retail technology has never been higher, especially robots.A month after Walmart laid off close to 10,000 workers with the shuttering of Sam's Club, it announced a new partnership with Pittsburgh-based robot manufacturer, Bossa Nova. The mechatronics innovator will begin rolling out inventory auditing scanning bots to 50 Walmart locations. The machines will automate the tasks previously held by inventory associates by autonomously navigating around the store to check the shelf display, inventory position, and pricing of the big box's 200,000 items.

Indeed, many of us love them and can't imagine our lives without them. The closer that robots get to a human or animal form, the more we begin to feel the mixture of fear and empathy that has defined our relationship with our fellow beings since we first began dragging our knuckles around millions of years ago. If we skew the design of these machines toward empathy, we get Pepper, which can identify the principle human emotions – joy, sadness, anger, and surprise – and adapt its behavior to accentuate the positive and comfort the negative. If we let fear guide the construction process, we get autonomous tanks, drones, and early prototypes of human-like warriors – not to mention fictional machine menaces like The Terminator that have haunted our imaginations since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It's fair to say that over the course of history, we imagine robots being more like the Terminator than Pepper.

As banking organisations, financial services providers and brands predict and plan for the way consumers will manage their money in the future, artificial intelligence (AI) is high on the business development strategy for 2017 and beyond. AI is already around us and used everyday within payments, money management and for robo-advice, particularly in the area of intelligent digital assistants that handle regular customer service enquiries and tasks. It can process'big data' far more efficiently than humans and can recognise speech, images, text, patterns of online behaviour, for example to detect fraud as well as appropriate advertisements for upselling. Smart machines and technology can turn data into customer insights and enhance service provisions, bringing the digital experience closer to the human interaction for consumers. Santander announced it is to provide secure transactions using voice recognition via its banking app, while Royal Bank of Scotland has trialled'Luvo' AI customer service assistance to interact with staff and potentially serve customers in the future.

This humanoid robot is likeable in every way: he's fun, surprising, resourceful and, above all, brand new. In fact, he's the very first robot ever seen in a store in Europe! To pull off this amazing feat, the teams at Capgemini France worked closely with Aldebaran to design the appropriate software. "A robot has three possible roles: greeting, conversation and data analysis. Kiabi initially prioritized the first two, so we focused on those," explains Jean-Claude Guyard.

It's been reckoned that about one third of large companies globally are using Artificial Intelligence as part of their marketing mechanics. The main goal of AI in this area is one of anticipating what customers will be buying in the short, medium and longer term – allowing special packages and promotions to be tailored to specific trends, on and offline. It also has the obvious advantages of improving media advertising placement, monitoring social media platforms and analysing brand loyalty. In essence, a strategy for informing what the buyer wants and when, which can enable dynamic pricing whilst at the same time vastly improving the automation of in-store or department selling function. AI is allowing clearer visibility into not only the retail sector, but is making its impact felt in the banking and telecom industries.

As banking organisations, financial services providers and brands predict and plan for the way consumers will manage their money in the future, artificial intelligence (AI) is high on the business development strategy for 2017 and beyond. AI is already around us and used everyday within payments, money management and for robo-advice, particularly in the area of intelligent digital assistants that handle regular customer service enquiries and tasks. It can process'big data' far more efficiently than humans and can recognise speech, images, text, patterns of online behaviour, for example to detect fraud as well as appropriate advertisements for upselling. Smart machines and technology can turn data into customer insights and enhance service provisions, bringing the digital experience closer to the human interaction for consumers. Santander announced it is to provide secure transactions using voice recognition via its banking app, while Royal Bank of Scotland has trialled'Luvo' AI customer service assistance to interact with staff and potentially serve customers in the future.

NEW DELHI: Over the next few weeks, you may encounter a robot at a branch of HDFC Bank as the country's second largest private sector lender tries to match Japanese players that have launched humanoids. Taking a cue from Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, which launched a robot named Nao last year, and Mizuho Bank's Pepper, HDFC Bank has launched'Project AI' (artificial intelligence) where the first product is now ready for deployment. Sources said the plan is to introduce the robot, whose name is being finalised, in one of HDFC Bank's branches and, based on the experience, the project may be scaled up. So, where will it debut? The plan is to deploy it in one of the branches in Mumbai first, certainly one that does not deal with too many senior citizens who need personalised service.