This is an image of the Zaamenkomst panel: one of the best remaining exemplars of rock art from the San people of Southern Africa. As soon as you see it, you are inevitably herded, like the eland in the scene, through a series of thoughts. Does it have a meaning? Why are the eland running? What do the white lines coming from the mouths of the humans and animals signify? What event is unfolding in this scene?

An Introduction to'Machine Learning' -- I came across this article and thought it was worth a share, the original article was surrounded in adverts and difficult to read, so I make no apologies for plagiarizing it! I have kept the original link at the bottom of the article, enjoy . . . The concept that a computer program can learn and adapt to new data without human interference. Machine learning is a field of artificial intelligence that keeps a computer's built-in algorithms current regardless of changes in the worldwide economy. Various sectors of the economy are dealing with huge amounts of data available in different formats from disparate sources.

If you think Americans have a love affair with cars now, just wait until people begin to treat them not merely as a means of transportation but as smartphones on wheels -- or robot servants. Automobiles are more wired than ever. But experts say the late-model cars on the road today are just a precursor to truly connected cars. In the near future this next generation of cars -- loaded with sensors and screens, feeding back to third parties huge amounts of data on vehicle performance and even driver behavior -- will communicate with other devices, be loaded with apps and even make their own decisions. While for now the smart car is lagging behind the smart home, automobile manufacturers, technology firms, ride-hailing companies and financial institutions are on course to integrate automobiles into the burgeoning Internet of Things. In the process they intend to revolutionize transportation and the fabric of people's daily lives. "The car is going to be an extension of who you are, just like the phone is," said Suresh Ramamurthi, the chairman and chief technology officer of CBW Bank, a small bank in Weir, Kan., that has attracted a national client base of fintech startups. In the more distant future, the car may become something greater still: an autonomous agent that can carry out tasks and authorize payments without requiring its owner's input.

The field of medical AI is buzzing. More and more companies set the purpose to disrupt healthcare with the help of artificial intelligence. Here, I collected the biggest names currently on the market ranging from start-ups to tech giants to keep an eye on in the future. No one doubts that artificial intelligence has unimaginable potential. Within the next couple of years, it will revolutionize every area of our life, including medicine. Although many have their fears and doubts about AI taking over the world, Stephen Hawking even said that the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.

You don't have to be a gambler to appreciate the complexities of the card game Texas Hold'Em. It involves a strategy that needs to evolve based on the players around the table, it takes a certain amount of intuition, and it doesn't require the player to win every hand. Just a few days ago, an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm named Libratus beat four professional poker players at a no-limit Texas Hold'Em tournament played out over 20 days. If you have even the slightest understanding of how to write code, you would realize that it is impossible to actually code a software program to do that with such "imperfect information". The AI algorithm did exceptionally well and was utilizing strategies that humans had never used before.

In order to compare and analyse open data across cities, standard representations or ontologies have to be created. This paper defines a shelter ontology that includes concepts of shelters, slums, households and homelessness. The design of the ontology is based upon the data requirements of ISO 37120. ISO 37120 defines 100 indicators to measure and compare city performance. There are three shelter-themed indicators defined, namely 15.1 Percentage of city population living in slums, 15.2 Number of homeless per 100 000 population, and 15.3 Percentage of households that exist without registered legal titles. This ontology enables both the representation of the ISO 37120 Shelter theme indicators' definitions, and a city's indicator values and supporting data. This enables the analysis of city indicators by intelligent agents.

Despite 2016 being labelled the worst year ever in terms of politics and celebrity deaths, it was a pretty great year for the Montreal technology scene. We saw a lot of funding come in both publicly and privately, a lot of new companies being launched and the push for the city to cement its place as an AI and machine learning hub. I want to highlight some of the great companies that are being built in Montreal with a focus on the up-and-coming startups which are poised to have a HUGE 2017. Check out some of the rising stars in Montreal (in no particular order) that you should definitely keep your eye on. As part of the build-out of AI and machine learning in the city we saw the birth of Element AI, in mid-2016.

WASHINGTON/SANAA/DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – The U.S. military said Thursday it is investigating last weekend's raid by U.S. special operations forces in Yemen and that innocent civilians, including children, were apparently killed. U.S. Central Command said civilians may have been hit by gunfire from aircraft called in to assist U.S. troops, who engaged in a ferocious firefight with militants from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the group's Yemen affiliate. The military said the civilians may not have been visible to the U.S. forces because they were mixed in with combatants who were firing at U.S. troops "from all sides to include houses and other buildings." Nasser al-Awlaki told The Associated Press that among the children killed was his 8-year-old granddaughter Anwaar, an American citizen. Her father was Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric killed in a U.S. airstrike in Yemen in 2011.

The face of homebrew, remote-controlled military robotics in Iraq is a man named Ali Hashem al-Daraji, better known by the nickname Abu Ali. In 2014 he was a policeman for Iraq's interior ministry, but in June of that year, when the Iraqi Security Forces collapsed as ISIS took over Mosul, Abu Ali hooked up with the Hashd al Shaabi, or "Popular Mobilization Units," an umbrella organization of anti-ISIS militias, some of which had also fought against US forces during the Iraq War. Before eventually returning to the Iraqi Federal Police last November, Abu Ali fought with a couple of militia organizations across Iraq, was injured by an improvised explosive device in Fallujah, and took a selfie with Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran's covert-action Qods Force, in charge of Tehran's wars in Iraq and Syria and a sworn enemy of the US. "My purpose was to help the Hashd with minimal casualties," he says. Abu Ali produces little wheeled robots designed to allow troops to fire from behind cover.

No one doubts that artificial intelligence has unimaginable potential. Within the next couple of years, it will revolutionize every area of our life, including medicine. Although many have their fears and doubts about AI taking over the world, Stephen Hawking even said that the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. However, I am fully convinced if humanity prepares appropriately for the AI-age, artificial intelligence will prove to be the next successful area of cooperation between humans and machines. Concerning healthcare, artificial intelligence will redesign it completely – and for the better.