When it comes to alleviating some of the world's most pressing problems, perhaps we should look to the skies. The word "drone" might inspire images of counterterrorism strikes and the future of package delivery. But quadcopters and other autonomous flying vehicles are revolutionizing the ways we tackle the biggest social and environmental issues of our time. While there are definite drawbacks to using drones in this capacity -- problems of privacy, ethics, and cost among them -- the technology, when executed responsibly, helps aid organizations, scientists, and everyday citizens transform the act of doing good. From edible drones delivering lifesaving assistance to rural communities to quadcopters tracking illegal logging in rainforests, here are just a few of the recent ways people have used drones for social good. Unmanned aerial vehicles have a proven track record of being useful in disaster relief efforts.

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis (R) greets an airman as he boards a U.S. Air Force C-17 for a day trip to a U.S. military base in Djibouti from Doha, Qatar April 23, 2017. DJIBOUTI -- U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Sunday visited Djibouti to bolster ties with the tiny and impoverished African country that is home to an important base for U.S. counterterrorism forces, including drones. Mattis, the first Trump administration official to visit Djibouti, planned to meet with President Ismail Omar Guelleh and greet U.S. and French troops. He was accompanied by Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa Command. The U.S. operates drone aircraft from Djibouti for surveillance and combat missions against al-Qaida-affiliated extremists in Somalia and elsewhere in the region.

Machine learning uses human expertise to boost algorithm effectiveness, finds Frost & Sullivan's Digital Transformation team Dedicated web application testing is fast becoming essential to any organisation's cyber security approach. The rapid proliferation of connected devices and the direct links among applications, http protocol, and web services create numerous points of vulnerability for hackers to exploit. Machine learning technology offers an innovative way to prevent these attacks and optimise web application security testing. How Machine Learning will Strengthen the Web Application Security Testing Market, a recent whitepaper from Frost & Sullivan's Digital Transformation Growth Partnership Service, details the evolution of web application attacks, showcases different machine learning algorithms, explains the best approach to select a machine learning partner for web application testing and provides an exciting innovation matrix regarding the web security testing ecosystem. To access the white paper, please click on the following link: https://goo.gl/3x0joh

Cormac McCarthy is best known to the world as a writer of novels. These include Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, and The Road. At the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) he is a research colleague and thought of in complementary terms. At SFI we have been searching for the expression of these scientific interests in his novels and we maintain a furtive tally of their covert manifestations and demonstrations in his prose. Over the last two decades Cormac and I have been discussing the puzzles and paradoxes of the unconscious mind. Foremost among them, the fact that the very recent and "uniquely" human capability of near infinite expressive power arising through a combinatorial grammar is built on the foundations of a far more ancient animal brain. How have these two evolutionary systems become reconciled? Cormac expresses this tension as the deep suspicion, perhaps even contempt, that the primeval unconscious feels toward the upstart, conscious language. In this article Cormac explores this idea through processes of dream and infection. It is a discerning and wide-ranging exploration of ideas and challenges that our research community has only recently dared to start addressing through complexity science. I call it the Kekulé Problem because among the myriad instances of scientific problems solved in the sleep of the inquirer Kekulé's is probably the best known.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will "significantly transform" the insurance industry in the next three years, with insurers investing in AI to empower agents, brokers and employees to enhance the customer experience with automated personalized services, faster claims handling and individual risk-based underwriting processes, according to a new report from Accenture. The Technology Vision for Insurance 2017 report, called Technology for People, released on Wednesday by the global professional services company, found that while the technology will be empowering, insurers face challenges integrating AI into their existing technology. Insurers cite issues such as data quality, privacy and infrastructure compatibility. The report is based on the insights of a technology advisory board, interviews with industry technologists and a survey of more than 550 insurance executives across 31 countries in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and South America, Accenture noted in a press release. The goal of the survey was to identify the key issues and priorities for technology adoption and investment.

When most people think about artificial intelligence, their minds turn to glorified fights to save the human race from rogue robots, a familiar story played out on Hollywood screens in decades gone by. While machine intelligence is still far from resembling human consciousness, an AI fight is playing out in real life, not between robots and humans, but rather among the businesses vying to lead an increasingly lucrative market. The origins of AI stretch back to 1950, when computer science pioneer Alan Turing published a paper speculating that machines could one day think like humans. Last year, research firm IDC valued the market at $8 billion, forecasting a rise to $47 billion in 2020. Between Turing's landmark paper 67 years ago and today's wild market valuations, most major AI developments have either fallen in the realms of research and academia or involved computers beating people at human games.

China, the most populous country in the world, has close to one billion people that speak Mandarin. Spanish is spoken by a less than half that number, primarily in Mexico, Spain and the countries in South America. English follows close behind, with Hindi in India and Arabic in the Middle East making up the top five. Or so you would think. The most common language in the world is actually not human at all.

Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will enable simpler user interfaces, which will help banks create a more human-like customer experience. The technology has become efficient in gaining extensive data analytics and customer insights, which will help banks to create a more personalised customer experience, according to Aspect Software. Four in five bankers believe AI will "revolutionise" the way in which banks gather information as well as how they interact with their clients, said the Accenture Banking Technology Vision 2017 report as customers are looking for a fast, efficient solution to their queries. The new report revealed that AI will become the primary way banks interact with their customers within the next three years, according to three quarters of bankers surveyed and also found that, while the number of human interactions in bank branches or over the phone was falling and would continue to do so, the quality and importance of human contact would increase. Stephen Ball, SVP Sales, Europe and Africa at Aspect Software, suggests that as the banking world continues to change with the adoption of new technologies, and a growing number of'challenger banks' and fintech providers emerging to shake up the established order, traditional banks are responding by improving their customers' experience.

In late February, the UN-Secretary General held a press conference, highlighting the risk of starvation in East Africa and the necessity to raise funds to address the emergency situations in Somalia and South Sudan. Drought has been back in these countries and their neighbours since 2016, leading to a huge current food crisis. While governments are trying to handle the situation, how could technology innovations help prevent starvation and improve agriculture management in the future? We met with Laurent Rivière, a French 30 years-old entrepreneur, who shared with us his view on the subject with a combination of engineer pragmatism and changemaker idealism . Founder and CEO at Sunbirds for two years, he explained to us how his "bird of the sun," his solar drone, is addressing the agriculture challenges of the 21st century.

In March, robot programming students took part in the 2016-17 FIRST LEGO LEAGUE competition (FLL) with the theme'ANIMAL ALLIES'. FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is a program that supports children and youngsters and introduces them to science and technology in a sporty atmosphere. The theme of this year's FLL competition was to explore the relationship between people and animals. Today, it's time to think about how we can help each other. What might become possible when we work together with our ANIMAL ALLIES?