The fintech industry has been revolutionizing the sector in the past few years, with disruptive technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, social data intelligence and blockchain, which are proving to be enablers in solving critical business problems. According to fintech experts, robos are already doing 75 percent of the distributor's job. For instance, these automated advisers ask you your age and a few questions about risk, goals and your time horizon. Then the platform runs your choices through their algorithms. Next, you are assigned a risk level ranging from conservative to aggressive.

Forrester published a report titled "The Sorry State of Digital Transformation in 2018" (love the brashness of the title) that found that 21% of 1,559 business and IT decision makers consider their digital transformations complete. The concept of "Digital Transformation" is confusing because many CIO's (at least 21%) and their business counterparts think "Digital Transformation" is about deploying digital technologies (like smartphones, tablet and "native cloud" applications) to convert manual and analog processes into digital processes. It's the word "Digital" that is confusing because it immediately steers the conversation towards technology. So let me try something different – I don't want to achieve digital transformation, I want to achieve "Intelligence Transformation" where intelligence is defined as: "The ability to continuously learn and evolve with every interaction." I want to embed "intelligence" into every one of my products, processes and services. I want to create products, processes and services that are continuouslylearning and evolving from every interaction, whether that interaction is with a customer, employee, partner or even another machine.

There is an episode of Doraemon where the robotic cat uses a wand to get products shown on the TV. The latest toy, that new dress – anything a person wanted could be obtained by pointing the wand at the object displayed on the screen. New York-based retailer Choosy is like Doraemon's gadget for womenswear. Imagine scrolling through Instagram and seeing an outfit that you like. Up until now, you tap the photo and see if the brands are tagged.

Companies across sectors and regions are seeing an initial boost in process speed and performance from machine learning (ML). SMART MACHINES ARE REINVENTING HOW WORK IS DONE 3. To maximize the potential of AI, digital leaders must create self-adapting, self-optimizing "living processes" that use machine learning algorithms and real-time data to continuously improve. The ability for machines to act as agents of process change will unlock new roles and ways for humans and machines to work together. Of the companies surveyed: agree that machine learning will result in improvements in job satisfaction and retention. Consider your workforce and AI to be complements.

It's coming quickly down the road: a world where we can get in a car anytime we want to but don't own one. Where accidents are drastically reduced, and we don't have to worry about dangerous drivers on the road. Where we can join conference calls or draft a report on our morning commute. Cars are changing more quickly and drastically now than at any other point in their history. And it's no wonder: from 2014 to 2017, start-ups, automakers and other stakeholders invested an estimated $80 billion into autonomous vehicle (AV) technology.

Sarah Jeong, a technology journalist hired by the New York Times and vilified online for tweets comparing "dumbass f****** white people" to dogs and saying they would "all go extinct soon", has been targeted for harassment by dishonest trolls, her former employer has claimed. Editors at The Verge, an online tech magazine, denounced what they called "disingenuous" criticism of Ms Jeong by "people acting in bad faith". The senior writer had been the victim of a Gamergate-style campaign designed to "divide and conquer by forcing newsrooms to disavow their colleagues", they suggested. Ms Jeong, 30, posted a string of offensive and apparently racist messages including "#CancelWhitePeople" and "white men are bulls***" up to five years ago. After being uncovered they quickly spread and were picked up by conservative media including the Daily Caller and Gateway Pundit websites.

Japan's graying society will require more investment in technologies such as artificial intelligence and robots to make up for a decline in the labor force and its effect on economic growth, according to a government report released Friday. The world's third-largest economy is on a firm footing, the white paper said, having enjoyed a moderate recovery for the past five and a half years under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policies, including aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan. "Corporate profits are at record highs, labor and income conditions are improving, and increased income is leading to an expansion in consumption and investment, showing that a'virtuous economic cycle' is beginning to take hold," said the annual white paper on economy and fiscal policy. But the report warned that the country is also experiencing its worst labor shortage in a quarter century, and some industries such as transportation services and construction may already be seeing earnings suffer as a result. "Amid an aging population, (Japan) needs to drastically strengthen the supply side of the economy in order to deal with the labor shortage and realize sustainable growth," it said.

The Beijing-based company blew past analysts' estimates Tuesday, reporting a record $3.93 billion in revenue for the quarter ended June 30, up 32% over the year-earlier period. Net income soared 45% to 6.4 billion yuan ($967 million). Baidu, which sells advertising linked to web searches, news feeds and other content, credited the robust quarter to improvements in its mobile app, which uses AI to tailor its offerings to users based on their viewing habits and search history. The app notched 148 million daily active users in June, up 17% from a year ago. That helped boost online ad sales, its biggest source of revenue, by 25% to 21.1 billion yuan in the second quarter from a year earlier.

We read with interest this week that Vodafone has just announced that they have developed the world's first Radio Positioning System (RPS) for drones. This new control system uses a 4G modem and SIM embedded within each drone to enable real-time tracking of the drone with up to 50 metre accuracy. The system is intended for use by drone operators helping them to identify and stay clear of unauthorized airspace zones. Authorized bodies such as air traffic control will be able to use the technology to repel unauthorized intrusions into controlled airspace. In addition to position monitoring the system can help drone pilots with beyond line of sight control.

Most of the focus has been on economic growth (like China's ambition for a $150bn industry). But there has also been a flurry of interest in AI for good; a proliferation of events, organisations being set up (like AINow, OpenAI and AI4ALL in the US and the Ada Lovelace Institute or ElementAI's new London office focusing on AI for good, here in the UK). Some are real and some may turn out to be little more than hot air, or algorithmic greenwash. So what can we hope for? Through the half century history of AI, the direction of research and funding has been dominated by the military and intelligence.