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.

In the last instalment of this blog series, we discussed objectives and accuracy in machine learning. And we described two crucial tests for the utility of a machine learning model: The model must be sufficiently accurate and we must be able to deploy the model so that it can produce actionable outputs from the available data. We then introduced a real-world scenario -- predicting train failures up to 36 hours in advance of their occurrence using sensor data -- to illustrate the application of those tests. But how did we decide which of the multitude of machine learning algorithms to use to train our model in the first place? To answer this question, we need to revisit the main classes of machine learning algorithms.

Snuffling through the underbrush, the shaggy little creature wanders through the sylvan night, sticking its nose in one place, then another, seeking the aroma of its soft-bodied dinner. The forest is dark and the pixie's eyesight poor, but long whiskers and a keen sense of smell allow it to get around. Threatened, it takes off at breakneck speed, barreling through the vegetation, ducking through holes, soon lost from sight. Many animals spend their nights cruising the forest floor, searching for small prey in a similar fashion: Hedgehogs, shrews, weasels, to name a few, and bigger ones, too, like opossums and even pigs. The world is full of them. But this one is different. All the others are hairy. This one's pelage is also soft, made up of millions of thin strands. All the others move about on four legs and bear live young. And as the male calls, he identifies himself: "Kee-wee, kee-wee."

India has started building a super-fast bullet train that will fire people across the country. When it is finished in 2022, a journey will drop from eight hours to three hours. Japan is helping to construct the high-speed train that will fire people the 310 miles between Ahmadabad, the main commercial city in Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's native state, to India's financial capital of Mumbai. As well as offering help and expertise, Japan has helped finance the project by lending money at a cheap rate to India. That collaboration was reflected by the laying of a foundation stone by Mr Modi and and Japanese leader Shinzo Abe, commemorating an institute that will train about 4,000 people to actually make the high-speed train.

Eyal Grayevsky has a plan to make Silicon Valley more diverse. Mya Systems, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company that he cofounded in 2012, has built its strategy on a single idea: Reduce the influence of humans in recruiting. "We're taking out bias from the process," he tells me. Simon Chandler is a freelance journalist covering tech, politics, and music. Sign up to get Backchannel's weekly newsletter.

The U.S. military carried out another round of drone strikes in Somalia Wednesday. A trio of drone strikes hit the Al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab terror group killed six militants, U.S. Africa Command announced. The strikes took place 160 miles south of the capital, Mogadishu. They came after two separate drones strikes last week. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers have returned to Somalia for the first time since the "Black Hawk Down" incident in the early 1990s.

Tech visionaries may tantalize us with visions of instant gratification via drone delivery, but Silicon Valley has yet to deliver on such promises. Meanwhile, halfway around the globe in an African country barely the size of Maryland, drone deliveries have already taken flight--with more serious cargo than burritos. Jeremy Hsu is a science and tech journalist based in New York. Sign up to get Backchannel's weekly newsletter. In October 2016, Rwandan crowds cheered the launch and landing of delivery drones developed and operated by Zipline, a San Francisco-based startup.

This is an actual rule. In 2011, British photographer David Slater was photographing a troop of macaques when Naruto, a six-year-old, smiled into Slater's lens, pressed the shutter button, and captured this toothy selfie: The lawsuit seeks to establish that Naruto should own his selfie, just as any human being owns a selfie they take. After going viral and popping social media metrics rivaling Ellen DeGeneres' Oscar-selfie, the photo was posted on Wikipedia. Slater fired off a cease-and-desist letter, but Wikipedia refused to take down the photo because a monkey, not a human, created it. PETA jumped into the fray and sued Slater to establish Naruto's ownership of his selfie.

This is an actual rule. In 2011, British photographer David Slater was photographing a troop of macaques when Naruto, a six-year-old, smiled into Slater's lens, pressed the shutter button, and captured this toothy selfie: After going viral and popping social media metrics rivaling Ellen DeGeneres' Oscar-selfie, the photo was posted on Wikipedia. Slater fired off a cease-and-desist letter, but Wikipedia refused to take down the photo because a monkey, not a human, created it. PETA jumped into the fray and sued Slater to establish Naruto's ownership of his selfie. A recent settlement – in which Slater will donate a portion of future royalties to conservation charities – mooted the Ninth Circuit appeal.

Amazon is said to be working on two new Fire TV streaming devices. One of the new Amazon Fire TV devices seems to look a lot like Google's Chromecast Ultras, while the other appears to look like a cube-shaped version of the Echo Dot. Information on Amazon's upcoming new Fire TV streaming devices were first reported by AFTVNews. The site even shared a photo of the two devices side-by-side. One of the new Fire TV devices comes with a dongle-like design that's very reminiscent of the Chromecast Ultra, albeit having a square-shaped body.