There are huge advancements in information and communications technology and these have changed how we work and live. Technologies such as blockchains are shaping the future of banking with potential applications in the health and other sectors. Books like the Augmented have predicted what the future societies will be like considering the Internet of things (IOT), our cars will not need drivers, the computers might not need keyboards anymore as it would recognise our voices and obey our commands, we may be selective in the kind of friends we keep as we can have meaningful conversations with chat bots considering the huge gains made in Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is with fascination that we watch these advancements in technologies and a huge shift from the socio-cultural norms which is being experienced in every sphere of our life, we do not need physical presence to open bank accounts anymore, we have apps that track our spending, apps that prepare our shopping list based on our shopping patterns, tell us the best deals and even place orders, we anticipate a time when wearable health devices will alert us about something happening to our body before we even know; devices will alert doctors and carers before a patient have a heart attack. What a beautiful future – "life in the smart lane" Brett King (2016), but how evenly distributed is the anticipation for the augmented?

"Alexa, ask Pebble how the Kickstarter campaign is doing." Today, we're very excited to announce that integrated Amazon Alexa support is coming Pebble Core! Core will be the first truly independent 3G wearable to give you the magic of Alexa on the go. Ask for your latest workout summary, catch up on current news, check the weather, or change your tunes--Alexa has you covered with its ever improving set of skills. Pebble Core streams music from Spotify, tracks your workouts with GPS, and now gives you the power of Alexa--all from the palm of your hand. Back the first truly connected ultra-wearable on Kickstarter, starting at 69.

This summer, the picturesque Birchcliffe Centre, a converted baptist church in the West Yorkshire village of Hebden Bridge, hosted an unusual festival. Guests danced across the sunlit floor to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach; they drank mugs of tea and watched talks. Outside, there was an "art walk" where attendees trudged up and down the muddy slopes, breathing in the scent of early summer flowers. There were nice places to eat, the village was welcoming. Everyone felt safe and included.

We introduce Bayesian Poisson Tucker decomposition (BPTD) for modeling country--country interaction event data. These data consist of interaction events of the form "country $i$ took action $a$ toward country $j$ at time $t$." BPTD discovers overlapping country--community memberships, including the number of latent communities. In addition, it discovers directed community--community interaction networks that are specific to "topics" of action types and temporal "regimes." We show that BPTD yields an efficient MCMC inference algorithm and achieves better predictive performance than related models. We also demonstrate that it discovers interpretable latent structure that agrees with our knowledge of international relations.

FUTURE PREDICTIONS: In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years - and most people don't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again? Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975.

The beloved trio of Top Gear presenters is long gone, but another pillar of the BBC's most popular show endures: spectacular stunts in exotic locales, with cars that drill dimples into your cheeks. That explains why even in the, let's just say mixed reviews of the new crew's first episode, no one complained about the American's star turn. In a 10-minute segment, new host Matt LeBlanc took the dirt-spitting Ariel Nomad for a run through the Moroccan desert, dodging "villains" riding motorcycles, flying drones, and doing whatever it is you do with a paramotor. The 47,000 Nomad is the off-road sibling to the bonkers Atom, so it obviously struck the Top Gear guys as something "we can have a lot of fun with," says series producer Alex Renton. He's been with the show for 11 years and got the top job for this, its 23rd season. Putting LeBlanc behind the wheel brought a dose of comedy to an already silly car and the 30-person "traveling circus" that descended on Northern Africa for three days in February.

We made it to the third lesson on Data Science. At this point, I'll implore us not to be bored. I promise the next post will dwell more on the coding part of Machine Learning. What is the final deliverable and what format should it have? Before one jumps into analytics and working with data, one has to ask the first and most important questions.

Creators of the popular game revealed this week that Minecraft has now been sold more than 100 million times – and a few copies have even made it to Antarctica. The figures combine sales from PC, console, and mobile versions of the game to create a user-base that'includes folks from every country and territory on the planet.' Creators of the popular game revealed this week that Minecraft has now been sold more than 100 million times – and a few copies have even made it to Antarctica. The figures combine sales from PC, console, and mobile versions of the game to create a user-base that'includes folks from every country and territory on the planet' Minecraft was created in 2009. At the start of the game, a player is put into a'virtually infinite game world.'

Ecommerce companies have seen a slower quarter. According to Business Today, investors in India have turned cautious about placing big bets on ecommerce start-ups and the party is clearly over. The total VC money invested and the numbers of deals have dropped from a peak of 43 deals worth 831 million in March 2015 to just 24 transactions worth 112 million (Rs 730 crore) in less than a year according to Economic Times. In a similar state, brands from leading ecommerce markets like SEA and the Middle-East are looking at tighter marketing budgets and greater value for their mobile ad spends (the focus is on metrics like In-App user engagement and conversions).

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has partnered with five South African universities to launch the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR) on 24 May 2016. Based at the CSIR and chaired at the University of Cape Town, the centre aims to build research capacity in the field of artificial intelligence, and to ensure work reaches commercialisation. CAIR will also ensure artificial intelligence research is spread beyond the traditional institutions of the field. The five partner universities, or collaboration nodes, are the University of Cape Town (UCT), the University of Pretoria (UP), Stellenbosch University (SU), the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and North-West University (NWU). The centre is funded by the CSIR, the Department of Science and Technology (DST), and the participating universities, and the wide research scope of the programme is evident by the variety of university departments involved.