Many countries are suffering from severe air pollution. Understanding how different air pollutants accumulate and propagate is critical to making relevant public policies. In this paper, we use urban big data (air quality data and meteorological data) to identify the \emph{spatiotemporal (ST) causal pathways} for air pollutants. This problem is challenging because: (1) there are numerous noisy and low-pollution periods in the raw air quality data, which may lead to unreliable causality analysis, (2) for large-scale data in the ST space, the computational complexity of constructing a causal structure is very high, and (3) the \emph{ST causal pathways} are complex due to the interactions of multiple pollutants and the influence of environmental factors. Therefore, we present \emph{p-Causality}, a novel pattern-aided causality analysis approach that combines the strengths of \emph{pattern mining} and \emph{Bayesian learning} to efficiently and faithfully identify the \emph{ST causal pathways}. First, \emph{Pattern mining} helps suppress the noise by capturing frequent evolving patterns (FEPs) of each monitoring sensor, and greatly reduce the complexity by selecting the pattern-matched sensors as "causers". Then, \emph{Bayesian learning} carefully encodes the local and ST causal relations with a Gaussian Bayesian network (GBN)-based graphical model, which also integrates environmental influences to minimize biases in the final results. We evaluate our approach with three real-world data sets containing 982 air quality sensors, in three regions of China from 01-Jun-2013 to 19-Dec-2015. Results show that our approach outperforms the traditional causal structure learning methods in time efficiency, inference accuracy and interpretability.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI), such as those being developed by Elon Musk's Neuralink startup, risk being hijacked by a rogue artificial intelligence, experts have warned--meaning a person's thoughts, decisions and emotions could be manipulated against their will by AI. The warning comes in a comment piece in the scientific journal Nature this week written by 27 neuroscientists, ethicists and machine intelligence engineers. The researchers use the hypothetical example of a paralysed man participating in a brain-computer interface trial who doesn't like the research team working with him. Artificial intelligence reading his thoughts could take his dislike as a command to harm the researchers, despite no direct command being given by the paralysed man. The researchers write: "Technological developments mean that we are on a path to a world in which it will be possible to decode people's mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions; where individuals can communicate with others simply by thinking; and where powerful computational systems linked directly to people's brains facilitate their interactions with the world such that their mental and physical abilities are greatly enhanced."

The data-driven organization, as it comes about, will most likely to be led or guided by Batman, not Superman. That's because few people really have super-human powers, but do have access to the tools and technologies to help make things happen -- just as Batman did. At the same time, technology is but one leg of the stool -- driving change to become a digital, data-driven enterprise requires a healthy mix of technology, tenaciousness, and training. Data science illuminates new worlds for decision-makers. Those are some of the takeaways from a recent panel discussion I had the opportunity to join, hosted by The Cube's Dave Vallante and John Walls.

Taipei, Nov. 2 (CNA) Artificial intelligence (AI) is not destructive, asserted Rob High, International Business Machine (IBM) Watson Chief Technology Officer, at an annual IBM forum held in Taipei Thursday. His remark came in the wake of a United Kingdom's Daily Mail report that Facebook shut down a chat bot experiment after two AI robots developed their own language to communicate. Answering questions at the forum, High said that even though some people may believe that chat bots are learning new languages, he thinks they are simply trying to optimize the language. Humans shouldn't think that AIs will develop consciousness or naturally produce ethics, but they should bear the responsibility to make sure that AIs are being used ethically, said High. Watson is a computer system developed by IBM that is capable of answering questions posed by humans verbally. In 2011, it competed on the popular game show Jeopardy and won first place, beating human contestants.

Amazon's Echo, Plus and Dot speakers will finally be available in Japan starting next week. To prepare for the devices' arrival in the island nation, the e-retail giant taught the voice assistant how to understand and respond in the Japanese language. Alexa SVP Tom Taylor said the company designed an all-new experience "from the ground up for Japanese customers, including a new Japanese voice, local knowledge and over 250 skills from Japanese developers." Users in the country can issue typical Alexa voice commands in their native tongue. They can, say, listen to news from Japanese media companies like NHK, TBS TV, TV TOKYO, Asahi Newspaper and Mainichi Newspaper.

Professor Stephen Hawking isn't afraid to state his opinion bluntly and honestly. He has publicly expressed his fears about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), the need for a new Space Age, the serious realities of global warming, how we might reach another Solar System, and that, as a species, humans must leave Earth in order to survive. Hawking has previously stated that our time on Earth is limited to 100 years, after originally estimating 1,000 years. But, in a new announcement in a video presentation this past Sunday, November 5th at the Tencent Web Summit in Beijing, he gave the human species less than 600 years before we will need to leave Earth, according to the British newspaper The Sun. Earlier in the year, Hawking said that: "We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds. It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth."

According to Medcrave, in a smart city, an AI Platform tracks citizen's habits, activities, and behavioral characteristics. Data and products can be personalised to meet and anticipate each user's unique and changing needs. Each citizen will have one's own digital personal assistant. Artificial intelligence can help governments handle their regulations monitoring by creating a natural language processing system to read through the legalities of regulations and reassemble the words into a set of computer-understandable rules. As per Digit, in the recent times, IBM Watson has been partnering with Indian Government to bring Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the daily lives of its people.

Post offices are often at the forefront of new technology, as developing efficient systems for delivering mail is essential for keeping costs down for users. Computer systems, in particular, hold tremendous potential for scanning and routing mail, allowing post offices to lower costs. Accenture has released a report, entitled "The New Delivery Paradigm," that examines 25 post offices through Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. For an average post and parcel industry, the analysis reveals that $500 million per year in value is possible through investment in advanced digital technologies. Increased competition and lower demand for mail is placing pressure on many post offices, but new investment could help cut costs, particularly when it comes to handling the so-called "last mile" of delivery.

Video games company Telltale Games has let go of 25 percent of its workforce. Still, the San Rafael, California-headquartered publisher maintains that the layoffs won't affect any of its previously announced projects. According to Telltale, the move to lay off 90 employees is part of its restructuring, which is expected to pave the way for the better. In doing so, the company believes that it will become "more competitive" in delivering "groundbreaking story-driven gaming experiences with an emphasis on high quality in the years ahead." The company is currently working on "Minecraft: Story Mode – Season Two," "Batman: The Enemy Within" and the upcoming "The Walking Dead Collection," which is scheduled for release early December. Telltale has just finished Episode 5 of its "Guardians of the Galaxy – The Telltale Series."

New Delhi: The slowdown in tenured jobs notwithstanding, flexi staffing in information technology (IT) is poised to grow in double digits in the next four years, Indian Staffing Federation (ISF), a grouping of top staffing companies in India, said in a report Tuesday. This growth will be driven by sectors like information technology, banking and retail. Flexi hiring refers to temporary jobs. The IT flexi staffing market in India, worth $3.04 billion in 2016-17, is expected to grow 14-16% annually to become a $5.3 billion industry by 2021, the ISF report said. Companies like TeamLease Services, Manpower, Kelly Services, People Strong and Adecco India are part of ISF.