Hello Kitty's new Sanrio buddy loves heavy metal and beer

Not all Sanrio characters are as cheerful and cuddly as Hello Kitty. Some are downright disgruntled.

On Thursday, Sanrio announced a new character named Aggretsuko, a red panda who works an unfulfilling office job but finds solace in heavy metal tunes.

"She's a red panda who works as an office associate of a trading company in Tokyo," Sanrio tweeted.

 

Artificial intelligence keeps IBM atop 2016 patent list

IBM's efforts to match and surpass the human brain with computing technology helped push the company to the top of the 2016 list of patent awards.

The US Patent and Trademark Office granted IBM 8,088 patents for the year, more than 2,700 of them stemming from artificial intelligence and cognitive computing work, IBM and IFI Claims said Monday.

 

IMDb to California: You can't stop us publishing actor ages

Entertainment industry website IMDb.com has challenged the constitutionality of a California law that can ban it from publishing the ages of actors and other professionals.

The law, signed in September, requires IMDb to remove birthday and age information from its website if requested by subscribers to IMDbPro, a premium service that shows profiles of professionals in the industry. The law's purpose is "to ensure that information obtained on an Internet Web site regarding an individual's age will not be used in furtherance of employment or age discrimination," according to its text.