Have you ever wanted to order a bucket of fried chicken without having to speak to a single a human being? Now you can! KFC, in partnership with Chinese search engine giant Baidu, has just opened the world’s first human-free fast food restaurant in Shanghai, reports SoHu. The intelligent robot concept store, Original+ (pronounced, “Original Plus”), looks unlike any KFC you’ve ever seen. The interior is designed in a traditional Chinese garden style with bamboo, flowers, and jade accents. Customers enter through a big circular doorway. Most remarkable, however, are the restaurant’s workers – small, pear-shaped robots named Du Mi, who take orders …

Gartner has highlighted eight key aspects of connectivity that will demand particular attention in the coming years, the next two years to be specific. Claiming there are skills and technology that companies have “yet to master”, Gartner VP Nick Jones said “immaturity” among technology, services and companies is a real problem. “Architecting for this immaturity and managing the risk it creates will be a key challenge for organisations exploiting IoT. In many technology areas, lack of skills will also pose significant challenges,” he said.

This week, Alphabet's Google opened up the Thread protocol (originally created by Nest), which makes communication between home Internet of Things devices built by different companies much easier, and enables their connection to the cloud.  This is the first open-source initiative for Nest, and the company said in a statement that, "As a company with a long-standing history of actively supporting and contributing to open technologies, OpenThread allows us to work with other like-minded corporations and individuals to deliver a best-in-class implementation of Thread that can be widely used for the advancement of a connected and secure home."

It’s been over a year since Amazon launched its Dash button, which allows users to restock their favorite household items with the single press of a button. Need a new laundry detergent? Easy, just stick your Amazon Dash button on your laundry machine and click it when you are about to run out. Now, Amazon wants its Dash buttons to do even more. Amazon has put out an upgraded version of its Dash button, called the “AWS IoT” button, which stands for the “Amazon Web Services Internet of Things” button.

Staying focused and concentrating when your smartphone is at hand is a perpetual problem. Tranquilo, a lamp by New Zealand-based designer Avid Kadam, offers a unique solution: the only way to turn it on is to switch your smartphone off. Luckily, it does the latter for you. Kadam designed the Tranquilo as a lamp made of a few different distinct parts. First, there's the light itself, a detachable LED lightbulb with Philips Hue-style color shifting abilities. The base, meanwhile, comes with both near-field communication (NFC) support and wireless charging, so when you place your smartphone on it, the Tranquilo can turn on …

Alas, we should have seen it coming - if only we'd been watching the screens that have so clearly been watching us. Even before this age of networked TVs and near permanent connectivity the future was well written - way back in 1975 in John Brunner's novel, "The Shockwave Rider." Reading the science fiction classic today, you would be forgiven for thinking Brunner had a Samsung smart TV and the year was 2057. This is a novel in which the protagonist, Nickie Haflinger, has inhabited numerous coded personalities, including that of a priest. A child who comes to him can't …

Google is reportedly ready to unveil its entry into the voice-activated home device market. “Named Google Home, the device is a virtual agent that answers simple questions and carries out basic tasks,” The New York Times reports. “It is to be announced at Google’s annual developers’ conference in Silicon Valley.”

A start-up that makes technology to allow you to control devices touch-free with gestures has raised $20 million to accelerate its products, including a new product that allows consumers to make selections on a virtual reality (VR) headset by touching thin air. Israeli-based eyeSight Technologies received the investment from Chinese conglomerate Kuang-Chi, which manufactures and researches new technologies.

German automaker Audi is continuing to pave the way for piloted vehicles with its latest A7 developments. The piloted Audi A7 concept has been tested alongside other road users and now is capable of adaptive driving, creating a more human driving resemblance. Autonomous vehicles are now publicly visible and tangibly close to availability, meaning that the details of piloted driving are now the target of the spotlight.

The head of luxury group LVMH's Swiss watchmaking business expects sales of the TAG Heuer brand, which includes "smartwatches" that connect to the Internet, to rise by at least a tenth this year, he told Swiss newspaper Le Temps. "TAG Heuer exceeds all our expectations. At the end of April, watch sales are up 20 percent. I hope for a minimum of 10 percent at the end of the year," Jean-Claude Biver said in an interview published on Saturday. Of the company's two other watch brands, he said Hublot was undergoing "voluntary braking" in a year of consolidation, while Zenith …