Artificial intelligence (AI) makes difficult tasks possible, such as sorting and recognising patterns in incredibly large data sets. The most challenging problems often have unexpected input and are often referred to as AI-compete or AI-difficult, implying the need for human-like computation. While some might think of AI as technology mostly used for complex visual tasks – or even as a far-fetched concept only found in science fiction – it's used in more ways than most people realise. That raises the question: could modern society get by without this fast-growing technology? Depending on the source, some claim AI has been around since ancient times, when the Greeks had myths about robots, and engineers from Egypt and China built automatons.

U.S. officials also said that American forces provided some support to an African-led military operation in Somalia that targeted Mohamed Dulyadayn, who is believed to be the mastermind of the Garissa University attack in Kenya in April 2015 which killed 148 people.

A Somali policeman holds his position during a firefight with Islamist al-Shabab gunmen in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Nov. 1, 2015. WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon says a U.S. drone strike on Friday targeted a senior military commander of al-Shabab in Somalia. U.S. officials say they can't confirm yet if he was killed. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook says the strike targeted Abdullahi Haji Da'ud, a key coordinator of al-Shabab attacks in the region. Da'ud also previously served as head of the group's intelligence.

A shirt and cap that can diagnose epilepsy quickly and easily has been approved for use by European health services, including the UK's NHS. Epileptic seizures are the result of excessive electrical discharges in the brain. The World Health Organization estimates that over 50 million people worldwide have the condition, including 6 million in Europe, making it one of the world's most common serious neurological conditions. Brain implants and apps have been developed to warn of oncoming seizures. But to diagnose the condition, someone must typically have a seizure recorded by an EEG machine in a hospital – with sensors and wires attached to the scalp.

The future of the way we work will be put under the spotlight by some of the leading minds in technology and computing at the International Festival for Business 2016 (IFB2016). The advancement of Artificial Intelligence and its use in modern life has prompted debate on whether men and women will be needed to work in business in years to come. Scientists have created robots who can do cognitive work and the nightmarish future of androids ruling the planet with brutal oppression has long been a science fiction storyline. A panel which will include a brain specialist, a tech lawyer, a technology expert and a union leader will explore the possibility of humans becoming obsolete in the workplace in reality. The discussion, Man and Woman vs Machine: Is AI Going to Take Your Job?' will take over the Blue Skies Stage in the Liverpool Exhibition Centre on Thursday June 16.

It's a weird feeling, cruising around Silicon Valley in a car driven by no one. I am in the back seat of one of Google's self-driving cars – a converted Lexus SUV with lasers, radar and low-res cameras strapped to the roof and fenders – as it manoeuvres the streets of Mountain View, California, not far from Google's headquarters. I grew up about eight kilometres from here and remember riding around on these same streets on a Schwinn Sting-Ray. Now, I am riding an algorithm, you might say – a mathematical equation, which, written as computer code, controls the Lexus. The car does not feel dangerous, nor does it feel like it is being driven by a human. It rolls to a full stop at stop signs, veers too far away from a delivery van, taps the brakes for no apparent reason as we pass a line of parked cars. I wonder if the flaw is in me, not the car: Is it reacting to something I can't see? The car is capable of detecting the motion of a cat, or a car crossing the street hundreds of metres away in any direction, day or night (snow and fog can be another matter). "It sees much better than a human being," Dmitri Dolgov, the lead software engineer for Google's self-driving-car project, says proudly. He is sitting behind the wheel, his hands on his lap. As we stop at the intersection, waiting for a left turn, I glance over at a laptop in the passenger seat that provides a real-time look at how the car interprets its surroundings. On it, I see a gridlike world of colourful objects – cars, trucks, bicyclists, pedestrians – drifting by in a video-game-like tableau. Each sensor offers a different view – the lasers provide three-dimensional depth, the cameras identify road signs, turn signals, colours and lights. The computer in the back processes all this information in real time, gauging the speed of oncoming traffic, making a judgment about when it is OK to make a left turn. Waiting for the car to make that decision is a spooky moment. I am betting my life that one of the coders who worked on the algorithm for when it's safe to make a left-hand turn in traffic had not had a fight with his girlfriend (or boyfriend) the night before and screwed up the code.

Czech writer Karel?apek's 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which famously introduced the word robot to the world, begins with synthetic humans--the robots from the title--toiling in factories to produce low-cost goods. It ends with those same robots killing off the human race. Thus was born an enduring plot line in science fiction: robots spiraling out of control and turning into unstoppable killing machines. Twentieth-century literature and film would go on to bring us many more examples of robots wreaking havoc on the world, with Hollywood notably turning the theme into blockbuster franchises like The Matrix, Transformers, and The Terminator. Lately, fears of fiction turning to fact have been stoked by a confluence of developments, including important advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, along with the widespread use of combat drones and ground robots in Iraq and Afghanistan. The world's most powerful militaries are now developing ever more intelligent weapons, with varying degrees of autonomy and lethality.

The architecture includes maths capabilities that could be used by other software as part of a heterogeneous system architecture. That could include neural network software but ARM executives stressed that Bifrost is first and foremost an architecture for raster, tile-based graphics processing units (GPUs). The previous architecture – Midgard – is the one that underlies ARM's T-series Mali GPUs and has up to 16 unified shader cores and SIMD [single-instruction multiple data] instruction set architecture. Bifrost supports up to 32 unified shader cores with a scalar ISA, full hardware cache coherency and something called clause execution. The primary goal, according to Sean Ellis, GPU architect with ARM, was to achieve more performance per square millimeter of silicon and per line of "real-world" shader code.

The family of the driver killed in a US drone strike that targeted Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor have registered a case against US officials seeking murder charges. The case, filed by the family of Mohammad Azam who was killed last week along with Mansoor in the Pakistani town of Ahmad Wal near Afghan border, said the father of four was innocent. US officials described the car's driver as a "second male combatant" but according to Pakistani security officials he was a chauffeur named Mohammad Azam who worked for the Al Habib rental company based out of Quetta, the region's main city. "US officials whose name I do not know accepted the responsibility in media for this incident, so I want justice and request legal action against those responsible for it," Mohammad Qasim, Azam's brother said in a police report, a copy of which was seen by the AFP news agency. "My brother was innocent and he was very poor who has left behind four small children and he was the lone bread earner in the family," he added.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises everything from self-driving cars to self-writing newspapers, but AI may be missing its greatest opportunity in healthcare, where AI-driven "conversational interfaces" hold untapped potential to influence the health and wellbeing of billions of people. Fueled by the massive popularity of messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, "conversational UI" is providing an emerging generation of chat-based digital services that may be the next thing in consumer technology. Instead of manipulating a graphical interface, users have a conversation with a chat-bot: software that is able to understand and respond to natural language inputs. The pace of technical advances combined with a shift in cultural norms is making AI conversations feel normal for increasing numbers of people. The idea of a "computer you can talk to" has captured the imagination of the computer science community, and the general public, for decades.