Roughly 170,000 people descended on San Francisco this week to attend Dreamforce, an annual conference hosted by cloud computing company Salesforce. We round up the themes that dominated the on-site conversations. The biggest theme of the week was artificial intelligence (AI), not least because Salesforce unveiled its new'Einstein' product during the event, which has predictive capabilities and looks to bring AI technology to brand campaigns. But the technology also dominated conversations held away from the keynote sessions. Bob Stutz, chief analytics officer of'data visualisation engine' Wave Analytics, certainly seems convinced of its uses.

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occurs involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.[1] The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, as well as a subject of philosophical and religious interest, throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology.[2] Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep--when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. REM sleep is revealed by continuous movements of the eyes during sleep. At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable.[3] The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes.[3] People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase. The average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven;[4] however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten.[5] Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses. During a full eight-hour night sleep, most dreams occur in the typical two hours of REM.[6] In modern times, dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious mind. They range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Dreams can have varying natures, such as being frightening, exciting, magical, melancholic, adventurous, or sexual. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming, where the dreamer is self-aware.[7]

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occurs involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.[1] The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, as well as a subject of philosophical and religious interest, throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology.[2] Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep--when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. REM sleep is revealed by continuous movements of the eyes during sleep. At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable.[3] The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes.[3] People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase. The average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven;[4] however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten.[5] Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses. During a full eight-hour night sleep, most dreams occur in the typical two hours of REM.[6] In modern times, dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious mind. They range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Dreams can have varying natures, such as being frightening, exciting, magical, melancholic, adventurous, or sexual. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming, where the dreamer is self-aware.[7]

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occurs involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.[1] The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, as well as a subject of philosophical and religious interest, throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology.[2] Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep--when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. REM sleep is revealed by continuous movements of the eyes during sleep. At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable.[3] The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes.[3] People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase. The average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven;[4] however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten.[5] Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses. During a full eight-hour night sleep, most dreams occur in the typical two hours of REM.[6] In modern times, dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious mind. They range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Dreams can have varying natures, such as being frightening, exciting, magical, melancholic, adventurous, or sexual. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming, where the dreamer is self-aware.[7]

JOHANNESBURG – At first, the drone took some explaining. Anxious villagers buzzed with rumors of a new blood-sucking thing that would fly above their homes. The truth was more practical: A United Nations project would explore whether a small unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, could deliver HIV test samples more efficiently than land transport in rural Malawi. Once understanding dawned and work began, young students and their teachers would spill out of the nearby school, cheering, each time they heard the drone approaching. "It was very exciting," UNICEF official Judith Sherman said. As drones quickly pick up momentum around the world in everything from military strikes to pizza delivery, Africa, the continent with some of the most entrenched humanitarian crises, hopes the technology will bring progress.

You might not be campaigning to be America's next president, or have any desire to hold such a demanding office (bless you, Hillary), but wouldn't it still be nice to be treated like POTUS when you travel? Or, at least spend a few days in the presidential suite feeling like one of the world's most … Election jokes are i Saturday Night Live' /i s bread and butter, so it should come as no surprise that the cast took aim at Donald Trump's hot mic scandal. But host Lin-Manuel Miranda also got a chance to shine in his opening monologue. Below, we've rounded up the must-see moments from last night's /b … Humans may live longer and longer, but eventually we all grow old and die. This leads to a simple question: Is there an intrinsic maximum limit to human lifespan or not?

Machine Learning is one of the most exciting fields in the world. Every week we discover something new, something amazing, something revolutionary. It's incredible, but it can also be overwhelming. That's why we created This Week in Machine Learning! Each week we publish a curated list of Machine Learning stories as a resource to help you keep pace with all these exciting developments.

Humans may live longer and longer, but eventually we all grow old and die. This leads to a simple question: Is there an intrinsic maximum limit to human lifespan or not? There are two equally simple answers. Either there is a limit or there isn't. Soft pretzels are one of the best things to come out of concession stands, but homemade pretzels are a million times better.

Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or tables, and the simpler the story, the better. The story that has ruled our world in the past few decades is what we might call the Liberal Story. It was a simple and attractive tale, but it is now collapsing, and so far no new story has emerged to fill the vacuum. Instead, we get Donald Trump. The Liberal Story says that if we only liberalize and globalize our political and economic systems, we will produce paradise on earth, or at least peace and prosperity for all.

In this latest University of Sydney'Open for Discussion' episode our host Dr Chris Neff speaks with Dr Michael Harre, lecturer in Complex Systems in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies and artificial intelligence aficionado about where AI really is and how it is affecting our lives. Michael Harre will be appearing at Raise the Bar, Tuesday 18th October. Chris Neff: Welcome to Open for Discussion. Joining me today is Dr Michael Harre from the University's Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies. Michael is an artificial intelligence aficionado, try saying that 3 times fast, and lecturer in complex systems. Chris Neff: Can I ask first, what is artificial intelligence and secondly, what got you into artificial intelligence? What was your background, how did you come to this? Ahh.. There's no straight forward answer in the sort of...general definition but usually it's something that runs on a computer that;s trying to do something kinda human like but perhaps not being very..very good at it. Because my understanding is mostly a star trek, star wars aahhhh... Will Smith movies and other kind of.. Dr Michael Harre: Ah yeah there's some great movies out there and the movies out there umm..they portray a combination of robot and ah..robots with some form of human like intelligence but umm..what you see in the robots is a bit more like um..what we think of as human behaviour and sort of expressing our human mind ah..but that's not what we are able to do at all with artificial intelligence yet.