Growing up in Nepal, I witnessed firsthand some of the problems and struggles that a developing nation faces. I was also there when the city of Kathmandu got struck by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2015 and remember the damage it caused. I believe the effects could have been mitigated had the country been well-prepared for what was coming. I recently gave a keynote speech at a conference in Nepal on how to use AI in developing countries. Unlike the technical conferences where I usually speak, the audience at this conference was different.

More than a dozen human rights groups and other advocacy organizations urged Google to abandon any plans to build a censored version of its search engine in China. The project, said to be referred to internally as Dragonfly, 'would represent an alarming capitulation by Google on human rights,' argued a letter signed by 14 groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders. The letter is addressed to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and comes after weeks of internal revolt at the company, wherein employees have expressed outrage over the firm's rumored plans to launch a censored search engine in China. While China is home to the world's largest number of internet users, a 2015 report by US think tank Freedom House found that the country had the most restrictive online use policies of 65 nations it studied, ranking below Iran and Syria. But China has maintained that its various forms of web censorship are necessary for protecting its national security.

Russia's Yandex has taken its self-driving efforts one step further, launching an autonomous ride-hailing service in the university city of Innopolis, Russia. The company claims it's the first such service to launch in Europe. For now, there will be two self-driving vehicles in operation and they'll provide rides to specific locations, such as the university, the stadium and residential blocks, for free. A safety engineer will ride in the passenger seat and around 100 people have agreed to test the service. Yandex unveiled a prototype of its self-driving Prius last year.

As the Trump administration continues to advance its hardline stance towards immigration, legal or otherwise, businesses are increasingly turning to automation and robotics to fill jobs previously held by humans. However, these thinking machines are not without drawbacks. AI development has long been beset by issues of intrinsic training bias, if not outright racist and xenophobic behavior. Take Microsoft's aborted social media bots Tay and Zo, for example, or Amazon's questionably-designed facial recognition system. However this relationship is not unidirectional -- AI can impact the expression of xenophobic ideas just as xenophobic practices can impact the rate of AI development.

A California firm has revealed a radical new AI'pilot assistance' system it hopes could change they way we travel. SkyRyse says its first craft will begin operations in Tracy, California, in January where it will provide support to the city's emergency response units, including law enforcement, search and rescue missions, and firefighters. The system will eventually allow helicopters and other vehicles to fly themselves, and its founder hopes to take on Uber and others developing'flying taxi' services. SkyRyse says its first craft will begin operations in Tracy, California, in January providing support to emergency response units. It will eventually allow helicopters and other vehicles to fly themselves.

A Miami hotel has hired a robot to handle room service. Yotelpad, a 30-story building that's part hotel, part condominium, is employing three robot butlers for guests and residents. The nearly four-foot-tall purple robots get around on wheels and feature a cute, smiling face on a screen that greets guests as they arrive. A Miami hotel has hired a robot to handle room service. Yotelpad, a 30-story building that's part hotel, part condominium, is employing three robot butlers for guests and residents The machines can deliver room service, bring extra towels, give directions, chat with guests and play music.

The Russian Ministry of Defence has been keen to promote a range of new super weapons currently believed to be in development. President Putin unveiled a catalogue of doomsday weaponry as part of his annual'State of the Nation' speech in March 2018. However, questions remain about the true nature of their capabilities, how far into development the weapons truly are, and when they will be combat-ready. The RS-28 Sarmat is intended to replace the Soviet-designed SS-18 Voyevoda, the world's heaviest ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). It is known as'Satan' in the West and carries 10 nuclear warheads.

Machine learning gets a lot of buzz these days, usually in connection with big data and artificial intelligence (AI). But what exactly is it? Broadly speaking, machine learners are computer algorithms designed for pattern recognition, curve fitting, classification and clustering. The word learning in the term stems from the ability to learn from data. Machine learning is also widely used in data mining and predictive analytics, which some commentators loosely call big data.

This post was featured in our Cognilytica Newsletter, with additional details. When people hear about the race for Artificial Intelligence (AI) dominance, they often think that the main competition is between the US and China. After all, the US and China have most of the largest and most well funded AI companies on the planet, and the pace of funding, company growth, and adoption doesn't seem to be slowing anytime soon. However, if you look closely, you'll see that many other countries have a stake in the AI race, and indeed, some countries have AI efforts, funding, technologies, and intellectual property that make them serious contenders in the jostling for AI dominance. In this newsletter, we'll take a look at how countries are strategically positioned with regards to their AI capabilities and ambitions, and see if AI is truly like that of the space race or simply like any other technology trend we've seen come and go.

Companies around the world are fervently vying for first place in the race to vehicular autonomy, and now it looks like one venture has crossed the finish line. A self-driving taxi has successfully taken passengers through the busy streets of Tokyo in a demonstration of what could be a fully-fledged service by the time the Olympic Games arrive in the city in 2020. Tokyo-based autonomous driving tech company ZMP, in partnership with cab firm Hinomaru Kotsu, say they're the first in the world to offer autonomous taxi services to fare-paying passengers. The trial, which is ongoing until September 8th, sees a sensor-equipped minivan make four roundtrips a day between Tokyo's Otemachi and Roppongi districts, which are about 5.3 kilometers apart. Passengers unlock the taxi door and make payments through a smartphone app, and while a driver and assistant are on board during the tests for safety purposes, the trial has so far gone off without a hitch.