Shutterstock
This will be the year when the Internet of Things becomes intelligent – and useful.
Hi Juno, welcome to Jupiter.
NASA/JPL
From the discovery of gravitational waves, to the Pokémon Go phenomenon to the Census debacle, it’s been a big year in science and technology.
Danny Lee/Flickr
Stores are engaged in an arms race to make online shopping less of an impersonal chore.
Scans are still largely studied by humans.
Shutterstock/bikeriderlondon
Artificial intelligence is already transforming a range of industries but it has still to make an impact on healthcare. So what’s the hold up?
Robots will need to teach themselves.
Robot reading via shutterstock.com
We need to do more than teach machines to learn. We need to overcome the barriers that separate machines from us – and us from them.
Who’s behind that Twitter feed?
Robot typing via shutterstock.com
In addition to the meddling alleged in the new Mueller indictments, about one in every five election-related tweets was generated by software, not humans.
Real or Fake?
John Stillwell/PA Archive
ABBA are reportedly planning a ‘virtual and live experience’. What might this actually entail?
If artificial intelligence can scan thousands of medical papers at the click of a button, will we need doctors in the future?
from www.shutterstock.com.au
Opinion in the medical establishment is sure to be divided as to whether AI helpers are a good thing or just a flashy toy.
Stephen Hawking has warned AI could be a threat to humanity.
Lwp Kommunikáció/Flickr
The vision that AI will either end or save humankind is buoyed in the tech world because it feeds egos. What we really should worry about is humans.
So I’m going on a big adventure … right?
Franck Robichon/EPA
Could you trade your baby robot in for an upgrade?
Shutterstock
Could reservoir computing be a future alternative to silicon chips?
HBO
New HBO series reimagines a group of life-like robots programmed with hope but marred in violence. They might be more human than we think.
Will our digital phrasebook finally be able to handle more than just simple snippets?
cybrain/Shutterstock.com
Auto-translation software has been pretty frustrating to use. But news of vast improvements to Google’s translation software raises the prospect that websites will soon be browsable in any language.
20th Century Fox
IBM’s Watson watched hundreds of horror movie trailers and then created its own for the new film Morgan.
Amazon
Amazon’s voice-controlled personal assistant device is coming to the UK and bringing smart homes with it.
Some innate human features can only be learned through evolution.
Shutterstock/Christian Lagerek
Doing favours is a basic feature of human society – but can robots join in?
There could be plenty of demand from the space tour guides of the near future.
Flickr/Pedro Vezini
Space tourists will need someone to show them around. This is just one of several jobs that currently don’t exist but are expected to be a reality with in a decade.
angellodeco/shutterstock.com
Computer-aided decision-making has been shown to help in clinical contexts. But winning over doctors and patients is a different matter.
What if these two smartphones could share their learning of their user’s behaviour?
Flickr/Markus Spiering
Artificial intelligence gives technology the ability to learn and adapt. But they can learn a lot more if they can share their learning with other smart devices.
Do PEDs make athletes less human?
'Cyborg' via www.shutterstock.com
As technology becomes fully integrated into our everyday lives, we may see athletes as the last vestiges of our humanity.