Dubai – The Saudi Ministry of Haj and Umrah has published on its Youtube channel a video giving an insight on how Haj as we know it today will change in 2030. Saudi vision 2030 doesn't only tackle economic and public sector development but also Haj and Umrah services will be improved. Artificial intelligence and technology as announced by Minister of Haj and Umrah, Mohammad Saleh bin Taher Benten, will give pilgrims to Makkah a high quality experience. According to the video, Muslims from around the world who intend to undertake Haj would have to apply through a mobile application, and within a few days, they will receive a box that contains an electronic card, a bracelet, and an earphone. The pilgrims should keep these three items with themselves at all times during the Haj.

Artificial intelligence has not yet confronted a crisis like the showdown between the USSR and the U.S. in Cuba. By and large, AI has provided us with amazingly beneficial tools. "Learning algorithms" on our digital devices extract patterns from data to influence what we buy, watch and read. On a grander scale, AI helps doctors detect and treat diseases, opens new markets and improves productivity for business, and creates data sets and models that address critical issues related to education, energy and the environment.

The practical application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by banks and financial service providers will be a hot topic in 2018. While seemingly a recent development, banks have in fact deployed AI to improve efficiency and lower costs for well over two decades. Starting with the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) disciplines across several banking processes in the 1990s, the emergence of big-data and cloud computing drove the adoption of additional Machine Learning capabilities by banks. Robo advisors and fraud detection are two recent examples of AI applications in banking. Inflection Point Despite the long history of AI deployment, we are now at an inflection point in the transformation of banking.

A RECENT survey conducted by IT market research and advisory firm IDC titled IDC Asia/Pacific Enterprise Cognitive/AI survey highlights that AI adoption in the region is on the rise. Current AI adoption rates stand at 14% across Southeast Asia as compared to just 8% last year, marking a clear move by companies to embed some form of AI/cognitive intelligence into their operations. Discovery of better business insights has become the most important adoption driver according to more than half (52%) of respondents, moving from third most important in 2017, revealing a maturity in the way the region is harnessing AI to enhance their business. Other top drivers this year are enhanced process automation (51%), and improved productivity (42%). With 24.6% of organisations in Indonesia adopting AI, the country leads the pack in terms of adoption, followed by Thailand (17.1%),

Starting a robotics company may seem like the coolest job in the world, but in reality requires a lot of grit and hard work, said a panel of experts. Imagine a surgeon's assistant who never feels sleepy, never suffers from tremors and never lets emotions get in the way of work. Fortunately for surgeons, this miraculous being indeed exists in the form of the da Vinci surgical robot, now widely used to perform minimally invasive surgery in Singapore's hospitals. Made by US company Intuitive, the robot is also a boon for patients, who recover much faster post-operation, said Dr Joseph Ng, chairman of the Gynaecologic Robot-Assisted Cancer & Endoscopic Surgery (GRACES) programme at Singapore's National University Hospital. For instance, while traditional surgery for endometrial cancer entails a six-day hospital stay and some 300 millilitres of blood loss in the hands of a good surgeon, a patient who undergoes robotic surgery can go home on the same day, and loses a tenth as much blood even if she is operated on by a trainee surgeon.

Machine Learning as the name signifies allows machines to learn with huge volumes of data that an algorithm can process to make predictions. Essentially, machine learning eliminates the need to continuously code or analyze data themselves to solve a solution or present a logic. In other words, this form of AI enables a computer's ability to learn and teach itself to evolve as it is fed new data. And since machine learning deploys an iterative approach to glean from data, this learning process is automated and the models are run until a robust pattern is found. ML software constitutes of two main elements -- statistical analysis and predictive analysis which is used to spot patterns and uncover hidden insights from previous computations without being programmed.

To find out more, click here. With anti-migrant violence hitting a fever pitch, victims ask why Greek authorities have carried out so few arrests. How a homegrown burger joint pioneered a food revolution and decades later gave a young, politicised class its identity. Kombo Yannick is one of the many African asylum seekers braving the longer Latin America route to the US. Answer as many correct questions in 90 seconds to win the World Cup with your favourite team.

On the one-year anniversary of the launch of Smith & Williamson's £100m Artificial Intelligence fund, Chris Ford, the strategy's lead manager, explains how AI is making its way into every part of our lives. The backdrop is that AI is transforming the way we drive, the way we communicate with each other and the way we learn, creating a host of opportunities for investors. But, said Ford, while the likes of Tesla and Google are obvious targets for investors seeking exposure to this rapidly growing field, many exciting AI opportunities also exist in finance, healthcare, media and many other sectors. Ford said: "When most of us think of artificial intelligence, we might think of self-driving cars made by Tesla, or Siri, Apple's virtual assistant. "But artificial intelligence is now being used by a whole host of companies and industries, many of which may surprise investors." With opportunities in most major industries, the Smith & Williamson Artificial Intelligence Fund invests across a wide spectrum of sectors around the globe in order to gain exposure to the trend. "From healthcare to commodities, companies are all starting to benefit from the implementation of different forms of artificial intelligence," Ford said. Below, Ford highlights three companies operating in unexpected sectors where AI is coming to the fore. Intuitive Surgical uses AI technology to conduct operations that are more effective, less invasive and easier on both surgeons and patients. Its da Vinci surgical system allows surgeons to carry out open surgery through just a few small incisions. Ford said: "There has been growth in the use of robot systems in hospital settings, which has led to a rise in the number of procedures that use its technology.

Cognitive Robotic Process Automation is the next step in the evolution of robotic process automation trends. Many of the leading robotic process automation companies are already eyeing the big shift towards the cognitive automation. Cognitive robotic process automation is basically a combination of robotic process automation and Data Analytics, which together make it easy and effective to manage processes that are information-intensive, in an intelligent and efficient manner. By that definition, it is a marriage between artificial intelligence and cognitive computing methods. By incorporating artificial intelligence, cognitive automation broadens the scope and depth of actions that would typically be associated with RPA.

Facebook has admitted that the company gave dozens of tech companies and app developers special access to its users' data after publicly saying it had restricted outside companies to access such data back in 2015. It's an unusual clear view of how the largest social networking site manages your personal information. During the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed March this year, Facebook stated that it already cut off third-party access to its users' data and their friends in May 2015 only. However, in a 747-page long document [PDF] delivered to Congress late Friday, the social networking giant admitted that it continued sharing data with 61 hardware and software makers, as well as app developers after 2015 as well. The disclosure comes in response to hundreds of questions posed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by members of Congress in April about its company's practices with data of its billions of users.