You know, we're not just automatons learning how to work machines and do engineering and math and science.

CNN: Bonnie Raitt's colorful blues

In the AI optimist camp, futurist and Google director of engineering Ray Kurzweil also sees intelligent machines precipitating human extinction, of a sort, only in Kurzweil's telling, humanity is not exterminated but subsumed into a superintelligent machine.

CNN: Is AI a threat to humanity?

From an engineering perspective, when it comes to making micro-machines, nanotechnology has a distinct advantage over electromagnetic motors.

CNN: Nanobots get to the heart of the matter

Both Germany and Japan, once widely admired growth machines, are now in need of fundamental re-engineering.

ECONOMIST: Lands of the cautiously rising sun

Siemens, a German engineering giant and a leading maker of such devices, has seen demand for superconducting MRI machines grow at the expense of the non-superconducting sort.

ECONOMIST: Inside story

When changes are made to a Blue model in CATIA, the algorithms not only make the necessary engineering adjustments but also calculate the cost and send the changes and a bill of materials to the machines and workers on the factory floor.

FORBES: Blu Homes' Apple Approach to Building Green Prefab Houses

Trams have broken down, ticket machines have had to be withdrawn and passengers have put up with delays and cancellations because of engineering problems.

BBC: New Metro tracks unveiled