It seems only yesterday that we were lying on our friend's sofa vowing to abstain from all alcohol for the entirety of 2016 before being coerced into a pub trip by our pesky co-workers the first Friday back in the office. Yes, the start of the year seems no time ago at all, but 2016 is nearly over. There are under 9 weeks left of the year and this, coupled with the arrival of the colder weather, has got us feeling all nostalgic. Let's recap some of the biggest tech innovations of 2016 and our predictions for the tech world in 2017. Well Pokémon Go launched in July and thanks to the enormous number of nostalgic noughties kids roaming the streets with little to do, it took off at an astonishing rate.

Jump to an update: • Waiting for Hillary on a gray morning • A few thoughts on the unthinkable • Palin speaks at the Trump party • Trump's path • Settling in for the night at Hillary Clinton's party • If Trump wins, he would likely also control all three branches of government • A new electoral map is upending the old one • The part of the night when Democrats start to freak out • Marco Rubio, again • The exit polls show a breakdown in demographics that is entirely predictable • A shooting near a polling place in Los Angeles • Early exit polls: No evidence Comey made a difference • Is the South still the conservative heartland? Clinton's motorcade arrived soon after. At campaign events and at her party last night, Clinton was permanently inside a huge bubble of safe space guarded by the Secret Service. At today's event, they were nowhere to be seen. Clinton arrived in a small caravan that stopped in a busy street. The only visible protection was provided by a handful of New York cops who hadn't received notice she was coming just then and halfheartedly tried to convince a crowd to move backward. Soon, Clinton's staff and the crowd and a few people who happened to have been walking down the street were mashed together for a panicky moment. A bicyclist, nearby, screamed, "Get out of the way, you fucking morons."--A. The executive branch of the United States government has grown in its power over the past eight years. After 9/11, George W. Bush built an aggressive national-security apparatus that Barack Obama only partially reined in. To cite just one of the powers that Commander-in-Chief Donald J. Trump would acquire, the American President has grown comfortable with killing alleged terrorists remotely with unmanned vehicles. Congress has done little in the way of oversight of this program, and it is just one of the many new powers Trump could inherit. Similarly, Congress has shown no interest in rewriting the overly broad war authorizations that Bush and Obama used to wage campaigns across the Middle East and Africa. As Congress and the White House became unable to pass legislation, Obama also pushed the boundaries with respect to the use of executive orders. These can be rescinded on day one of a Trump Presidency, but, just as important, Trump will undoubtedly push the boundaries of executive orders beyond what Obama did.

Artificial intelligence has become more of a philosophy than a programming tool at Facebook. Laced across the company's products, it holds the power to analyze data at the massive scale required by a social network connecting a quarter of the world's population. In a speech today at Web Summit, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer laid out a vision for the role artificial intelligence and machine learning will play in the company's ambitions to improve global connectivity, technology accessibility, and human computer interaction. "People want to stay connected and close to other people, so whatever is the best current technology to deploy that is the business we want to be in," said Schroepfer. Large companies like Facebook play an incredibly important role in the artificial intelligence and machine learning ecosystem.

Like most sectors, the solar industry is rapidly embracing ways to analyze and crunch data in order to lower the cost of solar energy and to open up new markets for their technology. The rise of data tools--algorithms, machine learning, sensors--are driving investments in, and acquisitions of, solar startups, while entrepreneurs are launching new companies that are using data to solve various solar industry problems. Meanwhile, big companies are spending money on tracking, monitoring and evaluating data from solar projects worldwide, helping to lower the cost of generating energy from the sun. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the solar sector is the latest to embrace the value of data. Other traditionally non-digital sectors, like the auto industry, oil and gas, and agriculture are turning to managing data as a necessity to keep their technology competitive and their companies in business.

Facebook has built a simple-looking video tool to show off a sophisticated use of artificial intelligence on cell phones. During an event at its office fb in Menlo Park, Calif., last Friday afternoon, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer showed off software that takes a live Facebook video feed from a cell phone and converts the image in real time into a selection of artistic styles, such as that of Van Gogh. It might sound like a simple filter, but usually an algorithm of this nature would need to send that type of information back to a server in a data center to process the pixels on more powerful machines. The Facebook crew crafted a less power-hungry and computing-intensive deep learning system they call "Caffe2Go," that uses the computing power in a cell phone. Facebook's Schroepfer showed the algorithm and other applications of artificial intelligence at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Portugal on Tuesday.

Whenever I receive bad service from a brand, I typically fire off an angry tweet and hope the company or organisation I'm complaining about notices the blue tick next to my name and takes action accordingly. It's ungracious, makes me look like a bit of a dick, and similar to trying to shift a caffeine-induced headache by consuming more caffeine, it may feel good momentarily but hardly ever works. Enter Resolver, a U.K. startup that's built tools to help you complain the correct way. They include automating parts of the complaint letter-writing process and tracking the progress of your grievance. And now the company wants to take all of the data it's amassed regards what works and what doesn't and apply AI -- their words, not mine -- to make it even easier to resolve issues.

Another big part of the food supply comes from ranches and farms that raise and slaughter various livestock. While ranching is sometimes bundled with agriculture, I discussed farming in Big Data in Agriculture, so we'll focus on ranching this time around. Somewhat surprising is that big data usage in ranching appears more limited than in farming. That said, there are a number of novel uses of technology and data in animal husbandry. At a high level, the goals of ranching and farming are the same as any business: increase yields and lower costs.

LISBON – The Nissan-Renault alliance aims to offer Chinese drivers a new electric car costing just $8,000 within two years, chief executive Carlos Ghosn said Tuesday as he touted an "explosion" in demand amid efforts to offset climate change. The electric auto market as a whole is stepping up a gear thanks to cheaper batteries, government incentives to consumers and better infrastructure for charging vehicles on the go, he said at the Web Summit in Lisbon. "For me, it is a no-brainer: electric cars are going to be a much bigger part of our industry in the future," Ghosn told AFP in an interview. Nissan was a groundbreaker in mass-marketing electric vehicles from 2008 and counts the popular Leaf in its fleet. But that higher-priced model does not compete against cheaper offerings from rival manufacturers such as BYD, Zhidou and SAIC in China, which is now the world's biggest auto market and also one of its worst polluters.

Today, businesses need to be able to predict demand and trends to stay in line with any sudden market changes and economy swings. This is exactly where forecasting tools, powered by Data Science, come into play, enabling organizations to successfully deal with strategic and capacity planning. Smart forecasting techniques can be used to reduce any possible risks and assist in making well-informed decisions. One of our customers, an enterprise from the Middle East, needed to predict their market demand for the upcoming twelve weeks. They required a market forecast to help them set their short-term objectives, such as production strategy, as well as assist in capacity planning and price control.

Why Neanderthal DNA lost out: Natural selection deleted weak'caveman DNA' from our genome The Neanderthals became extinct about 30,000 years ago - but not before interbreeding with their close human relatives, Homo sapiens. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules.