The continuing march of technology had quite an impact on chatbots this past year, with machine learning taking the fore. The ability to deploy a chatbot that can not only answer FAQs and redirect relevant queries to live operators, but that can actually learn new answers to as-yet unasked questions--that's what we mean by ground-breaking. A spate of new sites came into their own this year that proved chatbots don't have to be chatty to be incredibly successful. Using a conversational interface on a database search tool, for example, allows users to enter semantic search phrases, and have the results parsed for relevance before being returned in similarly universal language. These sites and apps prove that the AI-powered software, with a user-friendly interface on the front-end, is a winning combination (we'll have examples to share below).

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. It's only February, and the most stupefyingly incredible display of autonomous robotics we'll see all year has almost certainly happened already: The center core didn't manage to make it back to the drone ship, but damn, that double landing of the boosters was epic, and that's not a word I use very often. Here's one more video of the boosters landing, which I think must have been taken from the top of a launch tower at KSC.

An underwater craft that can seek out and destroy mines has been unveiled. The sub, dubbed Talisman, relies on computer software that allows it to complete its mission without being guided by an operator. Most mine-disposal missions rely on either human divers or small explosives dropped from a ship. Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) that are tethered to a boat on the surface by an umbilical cord are also used, but their cables restrict how far the craft can roam. Most of these options require the people involved to be within a few hundred metres of the mined area, which can put lives at risk.