Tech giant Google is intensifying its drive into Artificial Intelligence (AI) by opening a research centre in China, even as its search services remain blocked in the country.

Google said the facility would be the first of its kind in Asia and would seek to employ indigenous talent. Adding that the research centre, which joins similar facilities in London, New York, Toronto and Zurich, will be run by a small team from its existing office in Beijing.

In a blog post on Google's website, the company said the new research centre was an important part of its mission as an "AI first company".

Apple Inc is in talks to acquire Shazam Entertainment Ltd, whose app enables users identify songs by taking the smart phone close to an audio source.

TechCrunch, which is a Tech news website reported that Apple could offer up to $400 million for the purchase of Shazam and that a deal could be underway as early as next week.

Shazam’s smartphone software is already firmly integrated with Apple’s Siri digital assistant. Owners of Apple’s iPhone with the Shazam app installed could give a voice command like: “Hey Siri, what’s that song?” and the app will bring up the song.

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have given a robot 'imagination' through a type of learning technology so that it can predict its own actions in the future, and even manipulate objects that it has never come across before.

Using visual foresight, the robot called Vestri, can actually predict what its cameras will see briefly in the future when it performs a specific sequence of movements, reports TechXplore (TX).

Nokia revealed on Monday that its Chief Operating Officer, Monika Maurer will be quitting the telecom network equipment maker after just eight months on the job.

The company hinged the decision on its dwindling performance in the technology market amidst tough competition.

Both BlackBerry Ltd and Qualcomm Inc have declared on Thursday, that they are expanding their partnership to key into the swift growing connected automobile market.

BlackBerry, which has developed software QNX Hypervisor 2.0 to run complex computer systems in cars, revealed it would utilize Qualcomm’s hardware in areas such as virtual cockpit controllers, electronic control gateways and infotainment systems.

Carmaker Nissan is partnering with Japanese Software company DeNA to conduct trial of self-driving taxis on Japanese roads from March next year.

DeNA is a Japanese software company, which operates online services for gaming, healthcare and automotive industries.