When a man overseeing $5.7 trillion speaks, the global business community tends to listen. So when BlackRock founder Larry Fink, head of the world's largest asset management company, posted a letter to CEOs demanding greater attention to social impact, it sent shockwaves through corporations around the globe. In the letter, titled "A Sense of Purpose," Fink wrote, We … see many governments failing to prepare for the future, on issues ranging from retirement and infrastructure to automation and worker retraining. As a result, society increasingly is turning to the private sector and asking that companies respond to broader societal challenges. Fink's letter dropped just days before the 2018 World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of the global financial elite in Davos, Switzerland.

Quantum computing is one of the most exciting technologies there is, but its basis in quantum physics makes it a pain in the ass to understand and even harder to do anything with. A recent breakthrough in physics research, however, might change all of that and start a computing revolution. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened. IBM's Thomas J Watson (the person the Watson AI was named after) famously said "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers," in 1943. That's probably because, at the time, a computer filled up an entire room. But, in 1971 that changed with the development of the world's first microprocessors.

Seven megatrends are shaping our future and the way we do business. Join us as we take an expansive look at dynamic technology and innovation, addressing the sub trends "Power of innovation", "Life Sciences" and "Digital Transformation". We also provide expert insights into the latest research and make relevant recommendations for business leaders. Over the coming decades, disruptive, as well as enduring innovations will change our lives and drive wealth. There is a positive power to innovation, as it helps to solve the major challenges facing humanity, for example providing water, food and healthcare for a growing and aging population, using resources more efficiently, or fighting climate change.

DeepSense, based in San Francisco and India, helps hiring managers scan people's social media accounts to surface underlying personality traits. The company says it uses a scientifically based personality test, and it can be done with or without a potential candidate's knowledge. The practice is part of a general trend of some hiring companies to move away from assessing candidates based on their resumes and skills, towards making hiring decisions based on people's personalities. WSJ'S Jason Bellini explores breakthrough technologies that are reshaping our world and beginning to impact human happiness, health and productivity. Cornell sociology and law professor Ifeoma Ajunwa said she's concerned about these tools' potential for bias.

Developing a new drug can cost billions of dollars and take a dozen or more years to bring to market. Two Israeli researchers have applied artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning to shave time and money off the drug-discovery process. Instead of searching for the appropriate molecules to use in a new medicine, as is done today, they enabled a computer to make smart predictions without human guidance. Shahar Harel and Kira Radinsky at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology fed into their computer system hundreds of thousands of known molecules as well as the chemical composition of all FDA-approved drugs up until 1950. Aided by AI, the computer came up with new potential molecules by making sometimes unexpected correlations from within this massive sample.

A few years ago I had written an article about how technology is literally obliterating jobs and how to skill yourself up for this new economy. In this article I want to provide you with a renewed peek into what I believe is the road to success, should you want to be part of the artificial intelligence economy - which some are equating to the revolution nearly 120 years ago with electricity. But first, let's take a look at what digital disruption or the increased pervasiveness of new technology is doing to the job market. Last year, AP (Associated Press) ran a 3-part big story on "Technology and permanent job destruction," very real and a very chilling narrative of what is happening in the job market right now. We have never witnessed at jobless economic recovery ever!

Sony has announced it is bringing back its original PlayStation games console – to the joy of 30-something gamers everywhere. The PlayStation Classic will be a miniature version of the company's first generation model, which represented the next evolutionary step forwards from the 16-bit Sega MegaDrive and Nintendo SNES when it first went on sale in Japan in December 1994. To celebrate, here's a look back at the games that defined that joyous machine, the best thing to happen to the 1990s outside of "Kiss from a Rose" and Gladiators on ITV. This racing simulator was admired for its sleek graphics and buffish attention to detail and became the best-selling game in PlayStation history, shifting 10.85m copies and setting up a series that is now deeply associated with Sony's home consoles. Precision was everything for players of this favourite.

Today's artificial intelligence systems, including the artificial neural networks broadly inspired by the neurons and connections of the nervous system, perform wonderfully at tasks with known constraints. They also tend to require a lot of computational power and vast quantities of training data. That all serves to make them great at playing chess or Go, at detecting if there's a car in an image, at differentiating between depictions of cats and dogs. "But they are rather pathetic at composing music or writing short stories," said Konrad Kording, a computational neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania. "They have great trouble reasoning meaningfully in the world." To overcome those limitations, some research groups are turning back to the brain for fresh ideas.

China will be the world's dominant player in artificial intelligence by 2030. A State Council document, issued in July last year, resolved to position China as the world's pre-eminent practitioner of artificial intelligence (AI) in both research and application within the next 12 years. Governments across the world are rushing to support innovation in AI, but none has published as coherent a plan as China and – more importantly – has the ability to get things done: the Chinese government can implement policy in ways that are impossible in western democracies. Intent, however, is one thing: to paraphrase the boxer Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. The Chinese not only have a strategy, they have a track record of delivering on large-scale, ambitious projects.

A comprehensive, cross-framework solution to convert, visualize and diagnosis deep neural network models. The "MM" in MMdnn stands for model management and "dnn" is an acronym for deep neural network. In MMdnn, we focus on helping user handle their work better. This project is designed and developed by Microsoft Research (MSR). We also encourage researchers and students leverage this project to analysis DNN models and we welcome any new ideas to extend this project.