Artificial intelligence (AI), robots, automation, deep-learning machines -- these and similar technologies already have replaced human workers across a number of industries, including retail, financial, manufacturing, transportation, and construction. Not surprisingly, this has prompted concerns about machines taking jobs from people as enterprises seek to increase operational efficiency, lower costs, and reduce their dependence on humans, unreliable and unpredictable as we are. And we haven't even started talking about disengaged! The truth is that most enterprise employees are just punching a clock, literally or metaphorically. "The majority of employees (51%) are not engaged and haven't been for quite some time," Gallup concludes. "These employees are indifferent and neither like nor dislike their job.

A Chinese aphorism says that "the fire burns highest when everyone adds wood to it." It's an apt way to describe the way that industrial design and product development are becoming a collaborative undertaking. Cities like Shenzhen, long known as factory towns that churn out low-end toys and shoes, are embracing a new identity as creative meccas for design. This trend is gathering steam worldwide, for one main reason: design tools are starting to function less like inanimate objects and more like colleagues or assistants. As people and machines begin working together in new ways, the field of design will turn into a team sport, one where human ingenuity combines with artificial intelligence and automation to broaden the possibilities of how society shapes the world.

Technically, an e-bike is a normal bicycle that also includes a battery that gives you a push, but in reality it's nothing like that. In reality it's like a wizard: able to summon winds behind your back to propel you, like making yourself roughly twice as strong and fit as you really are, or like getting a backie from a friendly ghost. You pedal as normal, but when you do it triggers a computer that starts the motor whirring at the same time, propelling you along; when you reach 15mph, the law requires that it stops helping you, but it will kick back in when you slow down. Gtech's e-bike manages this magical act even better than most, by virtue of looking like a real bike. Some of its rivals embrace the fact that they are something towards a moped, with visible batteries and plenty of wires and weight; the Gtech model has all that, of course, but packs it onto a frame that looks like a normal push bike.

Gradually yet steadily, technology has taken over all aspects of our life. And the financial services sector is no exception. Financial Services spanning investments, lending and management of assets are a fundamental part of fund management for individuals as well as corporations. One of the nuances of this sector is the volatility associated with it owing to factors such as prevailing market conditions, political scenario, performance of stocks, taxation norms, etc. Since this condition is a given, companies dealing with such financial instruments need to glean reams of data before counselling clients on the right investment choice or the right kind of loan to opt, for instance.

The notion of artificial intelligence is something which has long excited technological society. Among the various stories constructed around it are (as in the film Terminator) those of robots ruling the world with humans fighting a losing battle against them. Gary Kasparov, the world chess champion, was matched against an IBM supercomputer named Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997 under tournament conditions and lost in the 1997 rematch. Since chess is, in the popular imagination, the height of intellectual prowess, this created quite a stir and it was anticipated by the popular press that humankind would eventually have to make way for a greater intelligence -- one which it had itself created. 'AI' is a fairly broad term which includes a number of unglamorous capabilities that fall far short of defeating a reigning chess champion. Capabilities generally classified as AI as of 2017 include successfully understanding human speech, competing at a high level in strategic game systems (such as chess and the Chinese game Go), self-driving cars, military simulations, and interpreting complex data.

Singapore bank DBS is using artificial intelligence (AI) to screen applicants for wealth management jobs, with the aim of saving 40 man-hours a month. Check out the latest findings on how the hype around artificial intelligence could be sowing damaging confusion. Also, read a number of case studies on how enterprises are using AI to help reach business goals around the world. You forgot to provide an Email Address. This email address doesn't appear to be valid.

When it comes to groundbreaking research, there are two fields that seem to occupy the newscycle: carbon nanotubes and artificial intelligence. The potential combination of those two fields of study seems like it could radically change the word as we know it, or, as South Korean scientists have discovered, at least change how we type. The carbon atom, one of the building blocks of life, gains radical new abilities when assembled into long, thin chains, known as carbon nanotubes. Think ultra-flexible films that are better at stopping bullets than kevlar vests, or bio-engineered plants that can detect land mines and explosives. And AI, trained using deep learning techniques, is soon going to make it almost impossible to discern fake videos from real ones. But researchers from South Korea's Sejong University, Chung-Ang University, and Kyungpook National University are instead merging those burgeoning technologies to create an ultra-thin portable keyboard that can be crumpled up like paper without breaking it.

Nearly a decade ago, I had the good fortune of being one of the last people to interview the founder of Commodore International, Jack Tramiel (famous for Commodore computers and the popular C64), before he passed away. At 83 he died from heart failure after pioneering the consumer market for personal computers and home gaming, and working toward changing people's lives for the better through technology. What few people knew, and what I discovered in our interview, was that the foundational concept driving the Commodore 64 was Tramiel's vision for a future in which the Holocaust and its concentration camps (from which Jack survived but his father did not) would never be able to happen again. In our interview Mr. Tramiel told me: I made the market for the computer youth-driven. I went around the world meeting young people in computer clubs and showing them what the computer can do.

The random-forest technique has emerged in recent years as a powerful way to analyze large data sets while avoiding some of the pitfalls of other data-mining methods. It is based on the idea that some future event can be determined by a decision tree in which an outcome is calculated at each branch by reference to a set of training data. However, decision trees suffer from a well-known problem. In the latter stages of the branching process, decisions can become severely distorted by training data that is sparse and prone to huge variation at this kind of resolution, a problem known as overfitting. The random-forest approach is different.

I found Semblance on the second floor of the Fuego Lounge, squeezed into a booth beside a dance floor and a small stage. It was early afternoon, and waitstaff were restocking the long, rectangular bar in the center of the room as game developers, press and PR handlers flitted from station to station. A cloth tent on the balcony offered psychedelic VR meditation; a geodesic dome on the roof showcased swirling galaxies. And all along the walls inside, indie games waited to be played. Semblance stood out among the row of screens for its energetic, purple-tinged visuals.