The winners in the various categories were as follows: Short-term Insurance Short term Insurer of the year Personal ... Read More » Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene on Monday expressed confidence that the South African Revenue Service (SARS) will reach its R1. "The focus right now is on meeting ... Read More » Opens Emerging Technology Policy Centre in Tokyo Tokyo, Japan: The World Economic Forum, the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation, today opened the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution ... Read More » Today's organisations very rarely exist in a vacuum. Companies depend on a multitude of third parties in order to achieve core business functions, and may include vendors, contract manufacturers, traditional ... Read More »

The rush to watch a one-off event in Fortnite led to a bizarre series of events and a brand new record for the number of kills by one person in the game. In recent weeks, Fortnite has been taken over by a countdown clock that was teasing a mysterious event. It became clear that all the excitement was leading to a one-off event, during which a rocket would take off in real time, with only people playing at that specific moment able to see it. The event led to a surprise pause in hostilities as the time approached, with players giving up on the battle royale part of the game and instead working together to build vast viewing platforms so they could see the event. As the moment approached, huge numbers of players gathered to watch the rocket come out of the ground and smash open the sky. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

Windward, the pioneering maritime risk analytics startup that's fundamentally changing the marine insurance landscape, today announced it had raised $16.5m in Series C funding. It brings the total raised to date to $38.9m. The round was led by San Francisco-based insurtech fund, XL Innovate. Existing investors, Horizons Ventures and Aleph, also participated, as did a number of individuals, including Salesforce Chairman & CEO, Marc Benioff. As part of the fundraising, Tom Hutton, XL Innovate Managing Partner and former CEO of RMS, will become a board director.

The advantages of the banking sector from artificial intelligence include seeking operational efficiency; means to detect and predict human behavior; and for lowering operational costs. This also signals further progress with the digital transformation of the Indian banking sector. For example, advent of mobile technologies and the end-users' trust levels in relation to banks security has pushed some Indian banks to adopt technologies such as fingerprinting for customer safety and compliance. This process of transformation has led PwC India's leader banking and capital markets, Shinjini Kumar to state recently: "Many Indian banks, like their Asian counterparts, are geared to use the advantage of local talent and leapfrogging technology to create forward looking digital strategies. However, there is a lot of ground to cover on creating Omni-channel experience and enhancing processes from the customer's point of view."

When the 2008 Summer Olympics were about to open in Beijing, China, government authorities grew increasingly concerned about the city's notorious pollution problem. Rather than risk the health of athletes and guests at the games, dozens of nearby factories were ordered closed and driving restrictions reduced traffic by 90 percent, according to state news reports. While the moves were considered radical and impacted the region's economy, the Beijing government felt it had little choice. Today, Beijing is saturated with sensors that can measure CO2 content and other pollutants. Data from the sensors is now combined with information from the city's weather service and run through algorithms developed by IBM's Almaden Laboratory in Silicon Valley that help to predict whether or not the city is going to be impacted by high levels of pollution.

Digital transformation is no longer an "if" but a "when" for enterprises across both public and private sector. The promise of greater efficiency, customer-centric products and services, rapid response to changing regulatory or economic requirements – and the chance to compete with disruptive start-ups percolating every sector of the economy can no longer be overlooked. The challenge is how to get started and get the runs on the board that build innovation momentum. Google Cloud's Nigel Watson believes machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) offer the most straightforward way to demonstrate what digital transformation can deliver. Watson is Head of Cloud Technology Partners, Japan and Asia Pacific for Google Cloud.

Pepper is a 4ft tall approximation of a human being developed in France, and now manufactured and marketed by the Japanese-owned corporate giant SoftBank Robotics. If you went to the recent Robots exhibitions at London's Science Museum or the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, you will be aware of what he (Pepper has been given a male pronoun, for some reason) can do. Using a screen on his chest, he tells interactive stories, approximates the basics of conversation, and performs everyday gestures – all the while, according to his creators, "recognising the principal human emotions and adapting his behaviour to the mood of his interlocutor". I have met Pepper on three occasions: the fact that my two children were so entranced spoke volumes not just about his capabilities, but the easy charm his inventors have wired into him. More than 100 SoftBank mobile phone shops in Japan are already employing Peppers to interact with their customers; last week brought news that HSBC is doing the same thing in its flagship US branch in Manhattan.

SpaceX's Friday-morning mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will include a new crew member quite unlike any other. The name of the new addition is CIMON (pronounced Simon) and it's being sent to act as a mobile autonomous assistance system. Think HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Moon's GERTY, and Holly in the BBC's Red Dwarf. Developed by Airbus and Germany's DLR space agency, and powered by IBM's Watson supercomputer, CIMON will be the first form of artificial intelligence (A.I.) to arrive on the space station, where it will aid the astronauts with their research work and presumably become their buddy, as well. CIMON, which stands for Crew Interactive MObile companioN, is about the size of a volleyball and has a display built in. It can see, hear, talk, and comprehend, and its A.I. smarts mean that the more it interacts with crew members, the more abilities it will develop.

How Artificial Intelligence will affect your life in 2018 Business By Shiladitya Ray According to Pricewaterhouse Coopers report, using different data sets to make predictions, including predictions for shopping, is currently the biggest focus of Artificial Intelligence (AI) globally. As machine learning, a subset of AI improves, wrong predictions and suggestions will become increasingly rare, and coupled with image recognition and search technologies, e-commerce will become more intuitive.

A team of engineering students has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can identify areas prone to water logging, and may help metro cities avoid tedious road congestions caused by monsoon showers. The researchers, including Aman Bansal and Apoorva Gupta from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT) in New Delhi combined rainfall, traffic, and location data to predict the severity of water logging in the vulnerable areas. "In a lot of developing countries, including India, the issue of water logging is persistent. In 2016, the roads of Gurgaon were flooded leading to severely waterlogged streets, which left thousands of people stranded for several hours. In Mumbai too, such incidents are very common," said Rishab Gupta, from NSIT, told.