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News

• Businesses can rent a robot for customer care

  Wish a robot could greet your customers at the door, guide guests to the correct meeting rooms or even bring someone a cup of coffee?

• Oculus acquires gesture-control firm

  Facebook, owner of virtual reality gaming company Oculus, has inked a deal to buy gesture-control and computer-vision company Pebbles Interfaces.

• GM to offer teen driver tracking to parents

  GM <a href="http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2015/mar/0320-teen-drivers.html">has announced</a> that it will be offering a way for parents to track their teens' driving behavior in order to help cut down on accidents.

• Will A.I. drive the human race off a cliff?

  Artificial intelligence (A.I.) and machine learning have the potential to help people <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2882813/nasa-rides-artificial-intelligence-to-the-moon-and-mars.html">explore space</a>, make our lives easier and cure deadly diseases.

• Philae lander phones home from comet hurtling through space

  After seven months of silence, a robot riding a comet hurtling through space has woken up and phoned home.

• Fab plants are now making superfast carbon nanotube memory

  A new type of non-volatile memory known as Nano-RAM (NRAM) -- it's based on carbon nanotube and sports DRAM speed -- is now being produced in seven fabrication plants in various parts of the world.

• GoogleX head talks moonshoots and need for failure

  SAN FRANCISCO -- At GoogleX, failure isn't just a good thing. It's something their engineers strive for.

• Marines test augmented reality battlefield

  Thanks to augmented glasses, the U.S. Marines on Thursday were able to turn a golf course in Virginia into a simulated battlefield, complete with tanks, mortar fire and smoke.

• Is Apple planning a 3D printer?

  LONG BEACH, CALIF. -- Speaking here today about the tremendous growth of the 3D printing industry, analyst Terry Wohlers slipped one name into a list of potential machine makers that took some by surprise: Apple.

• How to handle angry customers, AI version

  Companies often frustrate their customers -- or make them downright irate -- because of product problems, shipping snafus or rude people on customer service lines.

• Brain-like circuit could drive artificial intelligence

  Scientists are working on a circuit that mimics the human brain in an effort to dramatically boost artificial intelligence and machine learning.

• NASA: We "know enough" to send humans to Mars

  NASA is making progress on its journey to sending humans to Mars -- but it will take tenacity, flexibility and the cooperation of scientists and engineers from around the world.

• IBM advances bring quantum computing closer to reality

  IBM scientists say they have made two critical advances in an industrywide effort to build a practical quantum computer, shaving years off the time expected to have a working system.

• Musical T's combine album art with a one-time download

  A start-up husband-and-wife team has combined classic album cover art printed on a fashion line of T-shirts with an attached QR or NFC code that can be scanned to download a matching album of music to a smartphone or other device.

• California leads nation in solar installations as world sees 14% increase

  California became the first state to generate more than 5% of its electricity from utility solar, <a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=20492">according a new report</a> from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).