Africa
Researchers have linked a human brain to the internet for the first time
A team of researchers at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa have made a major breakthrough in the field of biomedical engineering. According to a release published on Medical Express, for the first time ever, researchers have devised a way of connecting the human brain to the internet in real time. It's been dubbed the "Brainternet" project, and it essentially turns the brain " … into an Internet of Things (IoT) node on the World Wide Web." The project works by taking brainwave EEG signals gathered by an Emotiv EEG device connected to the user's head. The signals are then transmitted to a low cost Raspberry Pi computer, which live streams the data to an application programming interface and displays the data on an open website where anyone can view the activity.
A Knowledge Level Account of Forgetting
Forgetting is an operation on knowledge bases that has been addressed in different areas of Knowledge Representation and with respect to different formalisms, including classical propositional and first-order logic, modal logics, logic programming, and description logics. Definitions of forgetting have been expressed in terms of manipulation of formulas, sets of postulates, isomorphisms between models, bisimulations, second-order quantification, elementary equivalence, and others. In this paper, forgetting is regarded as an abstract belief change operator, independent of the underlying logic. The central thesis is that forgetting amounts to a reduction in the language, specifically the signature, of a logic. The main definition is simple: the result of forgetting a portion of a signature in a theory is given by the set of logical consequences of this theory over the reduced language. This definition offers several advantages. Foremost, it provides a uniform approach to forgetting, with a definition that is applicable to any logic with a well-defined consequence relation. Hence it generalises a disparate set of logic-specific definitions with a general, high-level definition. Results obtained in this approach are thus applicable to all subsumed formal systems, and many results are obtained much more straightforwardly. This view also leads to insights with respect to specific logics: for example, forgetting in first-order logic is somewhat different from the accepted approach. Moreover, the approach clarifies the relation between forgetting and related operations, including belief contraction.
This lender is using AI to make loans through social media
As U.S. banks wrestle with the decision of whether to use artificial intelligence to help calculate credit scores and make loan decisions, a potential role model is MyBucks, a company that's been doing this for more than a year --and has even begun offering 15-minute, AI-based loans through WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. MyBucks is a Luxembourg-based fintech that owns several banks and provides loans and basic banking products in seven African countries, Poland and Spain; it's expanding rapidly into other countries. U.S. regulators have signaled a willingness to accept banks' use of AI in lending. And the evidence so far, at least in MyBucks' case, shows that AI can improve credit quality and reduce defaults. MyBucks' Haraka app, which is now offered in Zimbabwe, Uganda, Swaziland and Kenya, and in early 2018 is expected to be introduced in the Philippines and India, can score a customer within two minutes.
Free Money: Providing a Basic Income as Development Aid
It sounds like a dream: Poor villagers are handed money regularly every month, for several years, with no conditions attached. An American organization is currently testing the model in Kenya. When the village elder came to her in September to invite her to a meeting under the acacia trees, Norah Odhiambo was skeptical. Storm clouds were gathering above nearby Lake Victoria, the 34-year-old relates, and she set aside the machete she uses to clear brush from her neighbor's field for a few shillings a day. A new aid organization called GiveDirectly, the village elder said, would like to introduce itself.
Radically Open: Tom Friedman on the Future of Work
Smart machines, businesses as platforms, and the gig economy figure into Tom Friedman's riff on where the future of work could take global companies. Tom Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times and author of seven best-selling books. His work covers a broad range of topics, including globalization, the Middle East, and environmental challenges. Friedman is intrigued by the connections among people, businesses, technology, and institutions that shape the evolution of an increasingly complex world. His newest book, "Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations," explores the future of work, a topic also being examined by Deloitte U.S. and Deloitte LLP's Center for the Edge.
Islamic State group releases 1st video of Somalia fighters
JOHANNESBURG – A group that monitors extremist organizations says the Islamic State group has posted what is thought to be the first video from IS-affiliated fighters in Somalia. The video posted online Monday calls on supporters to "hunt down" what it calls nonbelievers and attack churches and markets. The SITE Intelligence Group says the video urges supporters to take advantage of people's "drunkenness" over the holiday season to attack. The United States last month launched its first drone strikes against Islamic State group-affiliated fighters in Somalia. The Horn of Africa nation has a small but growing presence of the fighters, many of them defectors from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group.
Bankers feel AI is key to enhancing customer experience: Accenture
In the next stage of artificial intelligence adoption, banks will use AI to help understand the intentions and emotions of customers and enable better interactions, according to a new report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN). A new report from Accenture has revealed that banks are set to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand customers' intentions and emotions, with the aim of enabling better interactions. The report, Accenture Banking Technology Vision 2017, draws on the analysis of an advisory board of more than two dozen individuals, interviews with technology luminaries and industry experts, and results of a survey of 579 bank executives in 31 countries across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and South America. The goal of the survey was to identify the key issues and priorities for technology adoption and investment. According to the report, more than three-quarters (78%) of bankers believe that AI will enable simpler user interfaces that will help banks create a more human-like customer experience.