Technology Update!!

We are closer than ever to producing holograms that'll make your inner Star Wars nerd hyperventilate into a brown paper bag. In the latest iteration of holographic technology, scientists have developed the world's thinnest holographic material. At 1,000 times thinner than a human hair, it's tiny enough to be incorporated into everyday devices, such as smartphones, computer screens, and TVs. Scientists have been promising us holograms for years, and we're now tantalisingly close to having them as part of our everyday lives. These ones you can actually  touch and interact with , and these basic holograms can be created on your phone using really simple materials. But until now, scientists have struggled to sufficiently shrink holographic technology to a point that makes it compatible with our personal devices. "Conventional computer-generated holograms are too big for electronic devices, but our ultra-thin hologram overcomes those size barriers,"

This year's winning team in SpaceX's Hyperloop competition comes from the Netherlands, and a Dutch tech startup has already built an initial testing site for the project. The goal is to have a Hyperloop system between Amsterdam and Paris by 2021. It looks like the Netherlands would soon join Slovakia, and the Czech Republic as the next European country to have a Hyperloop. A Dutch team from the Technical University of Delft (TU Delft) won this year's edition of SpaceX's competition to develop this next generation, super-fast transport technology, and they're already setting up a full-scale testing centre. The Dutch team's idea will be realised by tech startup  Hardt Global Mobility , in partnership with TU Delft, the Dutch national railway NS, and construction company BAM. Building the 30 metre (98 foot) tube is the first step. "In this facility we will test all systems that don't require high speeds," Hardt CEO  Tim Houter

                                         The robots have plans now! Researchers have started developing artificial intelligence with imagination – AI that can reason through decisions and make plans for the future, without being bound by human instructions. Another way to put it would be imagining the consequences of actions before taking them, something we take for granted but which is much harder for robots to do. The team working at Google-owned lab DeepMind says this ability is going to be crucial in developing AI algorithms for the future, allowing systems to better adapt to changing conditions that they haven't been specifically programmed for. Insert your usual fears of a robot uprising here. "When placing a glass on the edge of a table, for example, we will likely pause to consider how stable it is and whether it might fall," explain the researchers in a blog post. "On the basis of that imagined consequence we might readjust the g