Delegates at Newsweek and International Business Times' data science in capital markets event were mesmerised by a video of shoe box-sized satellites, known as "cube sats" being released into the earth's atmosphere. They were then shown the speeded up footage that was being captured: giant oil tanks with floating lids, rising like tides; ships being built from scratch in dry docks; burning flares from steel mills; a picture of the agricultural yields of the entire planet. Professor David Hand, chief scientific advisor, Winton, introducing the event, pointed out that the current AI summer is characterised by what he called "automatic data capture". He said: "Perhaps even more important than big data, we can now observe what people are doing all the time, like shopping for instance. Heterogeneous data is being produced constantly, as you sit here data about you is being captured by computers."

Next month, the inaugural FIRST Global Challenge robotics competition will bring together high school teams from around the world. Taking place in Washington, DC, over 150 teams are set to participate. However, while the team from Afghanistan's robot will be there, the team itself won't because the US has denied their visa applications. The team is made up of six teenage girls who traveled over 500 miles to the US embassy in Kabul for their visa interviews. They actually made the trip twice in hopes that another round of interviews would help their case.

It's no secret that our lives have become more sedentary than our stone age ancestors. Exercise improves brain health, inducing the development of new brain cells, but the link between exercise and our brain's extends far back in history. New research suggests that the link between exercise and the brain is a product of our evolutionary history and our past as hunter-gatherers, and the same parts of the brain that are taxed during complex tasks such as foraging also benefit from exercise. Researchers argue that as humans transitioned from a sedentary, apelike existence to a more physically demanding, hunter-gatherer lifestyle about 2 million years ago, we started carrying out foraging tasks, which may explain the connection between the brain and physical activity. Two University of Arizona researchers who run a research program on exercise and the brain have developed an'adaptive capacity model' for understanding, from an evolutionary neuroscience perspective, how physical activity impacts brain structure and function.

Artificial Intelligence gets a bad rap in pop culture. Movies like Terminator (with its rebellious Skynet) and 2001 (with its murderous HAL 9000) portray a future where the robots get smart, and conclude that it is in their interests to try and destroy mankind. But the truth about AI is a lot more mundane, writes Kele Boakgomo, MD: financial services practice at Accenture in South Africa. Most of us use AI every day when we talk and interact with Siri or Google on our phones and AI is why Netflix knows what movies you'll like and what other products you'll want to buy on Amazon. And AI is poised to become a big deal in banking.

A recent paper from the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) lab describes how its researchers have used machine learning to train chatbot "dialogue agents" to negotiate. I first came across this development as reported by the website Futurism. Negotiating complex information technology services deals was how I made my living for many years, and so the news that artificial intelligence (AI) could one day take the place of a negotiator made me sit bolt upright. I perused the FAIR report, which in its abstract says that much of human dialogue occurs in semi-cooperative settings, where agents with different goals attempt to agree on common decisions. Negotiations require complex communication and reasoning skills, but success--arriving at a deal--is easy to measure, which made this an interesting task for its AI research.

To accelerate growth across the continent, Rockwell acquired Hiprom in 2011. Hiprom, a Johannesburg-based corporation, is a process control and automation systems integrator specialising in mining and mineral processing. When Rockwell acquired Hiprom, a company spokesperson revealed that the acquisition was a strategic play to strengthen their global project management and delivery capabilities in the mining, metals and minerals industries. According to John Lewis, Rockwell's current director of business partnering, Hiprom - which is still run out of South Africa - is now the group's global mining competency centre of excellence. In a recent podcast conversation I had with Lewis, he shared how Rockwell is adapting to changing times by hiring software developers and tech-savvy business specialists who can speak to the myriad optimisation challenges faced by their clients all over the world.

John Chambers, Chairman of Cisco System 3. Welcome to the Digital Economy Compass 3 Less talking, more facts – our idea behind creating the Digital Economy Compass. It contains facts, trends and key players, covering the entire digital economy. This very first edition will provide everything you need to know about the digital economy. In a global comparison, broadband speed is fastest in East Asia and Scandinavia Source: Akamai Technologies Note: Figure refers to Q3-2016; countries covered: broadband ranking – 147 1: Megabits per second 10 Average broadband speed in Top10 and selected countries (in Mbps1) South Korea 1 Hong Kong 2 Norway 3 23.6 18.2 Sweden 4 20.1 18.4 20.0 19.7 The sevenfold increase in global mobile data traffic is mainly driven by online video streaming Source: Cisco System; figures include only cellular mobile traffic (Wi-Fi or small cell from dual-mode devices are excluded) Note: Other mobile devices include Tablets, mobile PCs, M2M (incl. Pokémon Go was the most popular mobile game for iPhone users across the globe In cooperation with 19 Most downloaded iPhone apps per category and country in 2016 Categories covered: Shopping, Music, News, Gaming, Social Networks U.S. PandoraAmazon CNN Pokémon Go Messenger China Kugou Music Taobao Toutiao WeChat King of Glory Germany SpotifyKleinan zeigen Spiegel Online Pokémon Go WhatsApp U.K. SpotifyeBay BBC News Pokémon Go WhatsApp France DeezerWish Le Monde Pokémon Go Messenger Connectivity 21. "If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends."

Foreign Affairs Editor Gideon Rose discusses work and life in the age of automation. He speaks on "Bloomberg Surveillance." "Sophia," an artificially intelligent (AI) human-like robot developed by Hong Kong-based humanoid robotics company Hanson Robotics, is seen in Geneva on June 7, 2017. That's what influential economist John Maynard Keynes prophesied in his famous 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," forecasting that in the next century technology would make us so productive we wouldn't know what to do with all our free time. This is not the future Keynes imagined.

WIRE)--Glooko, the leader in diabetes data management, today announced $35 million in new funding to accelerate growth, expand international presence, and deepen expertise in data analytics. This round was led by Georgian Partners, a Toronto-based investor focused on applied analytics and machine learning. Other new investors include Insulet Corporation and Mayo Clinic who join existing investors Canaan Partners, Social Capital, Medtronic and Samsung NEXT in the round. Glooko will use the funds to accelerate growth by expanding its sales, marketing and development teams. The company will also increase commercialization efforts in France, Germany, the U.K., Asia and the Middle East, and further development efforts in data analytics and artificial intelligence to provide personalized insights that drive meaningful behavior change.

Global GDP will be 14% higher in 2030 as a result of AI – the equivalent of an additional $15.7 trillion. This makes it the biggest commercial opportunity in today's fast changing economy according to new research by PwC. Drawing on a detailed analysis of the business impact of AI Sizing the prize outlines the economies that are set to gain the most from AI. AI will contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy in 2030, more than the current output of China and India combined. Labour productivity improvements are expected to account for over half of all economic gains from AI over the period 2016-2030. Increased consumer demand resulting from AI-enabled product enhancements will account for the rest.