In Tom Hanks' latest movie, the beloved actor plays a man living in isolation from the rest of humanity and making his way through a sometimes-harsh environment, giving the star the opportunity to act opposite an untraditional and unemotive screen partner. The movie is Finch, a sci-fi drama now on Apple TV, but on paper it sounds a lot like Cast Away, the blockbuster survival drama that netted Hanks a Best Actor nomination in 2001. But while Finch is probably the closest Hanks has ever come to reviving that particular and distinctive mid-career triumph, it's not exactly an anomaly in Hanks' filmography, especially when you look at the last two decades. In this late stage, Hanks' all-American everyman has increasingly found himself going it alone, replacing the team efforts of Apollo 13 and Saving Private Ryan, and the romantic devotion of Forrest Gump and You've Got Mail and with stories that deal more explicitly with solitude. At the time of its release, Cast Away felt like a novelty act, albeit one executed with great skill.

In today's episode of Future Tech, I want to give you 10 reasons how robots could make our lives easier and better. Now we've seen a lot of science fiction movies over the years like Star Wars with C Threepio and R2D2 And how those robots helped Luke, Leia and Han and Chewie, and we've seen iRobot where the robots took over the world or Terminator where the machines took over the world and started killing all the humans. But they don't always show us how robots could be helping us. There's a really good movie and book by Isaac Asimov called Bicentennial Man which I really enjoyed. The movie stars Robin Williams, and it shows you how a robot could actually help a family.

Dr Kate Darling is a research specialist in human-robot interaction, robot ethics and intellectual property theory and policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. In her new book, The New Breed, she argues that we would be better prepared for the future if we started thinking about robots and artificial intelligence (AI) like animals. What is wrong with the way we think about robots? So often we subconsciously compare robots to humans and AI to human intelligence. The comparison limits our imagination.

Blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, two cutting-edge technologies, have the potential to change the face of healthcare as we know it by improving the quality and reducing costs through improved efficiencies. Most of us are at least somewhat familiar with artificial intelligence primarily through virtual assistants such as Siri and Alexa. Artificial intelligence automates repetitive learning and discovery through data after initially being set up by a human being. As many people also know, you have to be fairly specific when asking Siri and Alexa any questions -- the question must be posed in the right way -- to get the answer you are looking for. As an example, our interactions with Alexa, Siri, Google Search and Google Photos are based on deep learning.

How long until Alexa and Siri, our robot companions, know more about our health than our family doctor? Artificial intelligence, often referred to as machine intelligence, is all around us. Our smartphones, our social media apps, every time we shop online, our in-home robot companions, are all driven by AI. If Alexa and Siri know more about your day to day habits, emotions, and atmospheric influences, it's only a matter of time before our in-home robots, with access to more data, will know more than just our overall health. This plethora of data will be a gold mine for those businesses that own it and choose the right application for its use.

It speaks two languages, gives math lessons, tells jokes and interacts with children through the tablet screen in its chest--China's latest robot is the babysitter every parent needs. The "iPal" was among a slew of new tech unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show Asia in Shanghai this week, offering education and company for lonely children and peace of mind for adults. The humanoid device stands as tall as a five-year-old, moves and dances on wheels and its eyes keep track of its charges through facial recognition technology. Parents can also remotely talk to and monitor the children through the iPal, which is linked to a smartphone app that allows them to see and hear everything. "The idea for this robot is to be a companion for children," said Tingyu Huang, co-founder of AvatarMind Robot Technology.

In a Tokyo suburb, a forward-thinking Buddhist temple has been causing a stir with its funerals for a very special kind of'pet'. In some respects, the funerals are like any other in Japan, with incense smoke, chanting priests and prayers for a peaceful transition of the souls of the departed. The only difference is that the solemn ceremony is performed solely for owners to say goodbye to their robot dogs. Mourners, who have become deeply attached to their robot companions, attend the funerals because they believe their robots have a soul that needs to be put to rest. In a Tokyo suburb, a forward-thinking Buddhist temple has been causing a stir with its funerals for robot dogs.

This technology could be put in smartphones that understand and predict our behaviour, potentially offering personalised support. They could also be used by robot companions for older people, or in self-driving cars and interactive video games. Researchers found the machine (labelled'our classifier') is currently between seven and 15 per cent better than random chance at predicting neuroticism, extroversion, agreeablesness and conscientiousness.

Private equity investors love India, at least more than any other country in South Asian. Since 2015, India has been the focus of a majority of the total private equity and venture capital tech activity in the region. India accounted for 56 percent of deals by value, and 71 percent by volume of all the PE and VC activity in South and South East Asian markets, the report said. The next biggest market, Singapore, accounted for 33 percent of the deal value and 10 percent of the volume. "As investors look to enter the game early, VC funding has focused on startups," the report said.

Back in 1999, I was asked to write a short article for Sm@rt Reseller magazine about the future of computing, because (allegedly) science fiction authors are in the business of contemplating the future. Science fiction authors often consider what might happen "If this goes on--" where technology writers are best at "Here's what we've got." Some of the trends toward convergence seemed obvious to me at the time, so I put down a few thoughts…which turned out to be far more prescient than I expected. But, see, here's the thing: Science fiction authors don't predict the future. It's just that once in a while, something that someone imagines does end up as a fact, and this is why some people think science fiction is a literature of prediction.