A group of Palestinian activists in the UK could be imprisoned after a protest outside a factory owned by a subsidiary of Israeli drone manufacturer, Elbit Systems. Five protesters were arrested in July after the demonstration in the West Midlands town of Shenstone and later charged with a breach of the Trade Union and Labour Relations. Operations at the UAV Engines Ltd plant were shutdown for two days starting July 6 with protesters laying out mock coffins outside the factory and laying on the ground outside its gates. The specific offence the activists are accused of carries a sentence of up to six months in prison and a fine of up to 5,000 British pounds ($6,410). A court hearing on Friday was adjourned pending a review of the charge by prosecutors with the possibility that the current charge may be dropped and a new one added.

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series developed by GSC Game World is somewhat of an underrated gem with a global cult following. They are a trilogy of games that take on the role of depicting an alternate history. Within this world, the Chernobyl Incident occurs twice, rather than once. The second time Chernobyl is hit with a blast of radiation, it changes the landscape around it, causing all sorts of issues. There is no clear cause within the game lore but the area is contaminated beyond any repair, leaving it extremely hostile and teeming with unknown creatures born from mutation and other elements.

Humanoid robots have come eerily close to overcoming the uncanny valley. With the right features in place, they are almost indistinguishable from their organic counterparts. The latest iterations are able to talk like us, walk like us, and express a wide range of emotions. Some of them are able to hold a conversation, others are able to remember the last interaction you had with them. As a result of their highly advanced status, these life-like robots could prove useful in helping out the elderly, children, or any person who needs assistance with day-to-day tasks or interactions.

Uber has had their fair share of press, both good and bad. Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick delivers a speech in London on October 3, 2014. SAN FRANCISCO -- Is this Uber, the ride-hailing company -- or Uber, the prime-time melodrama? Lawsuits, board infighting and an inability to land its next CEO have created a swirl of corporate intrigue only rivaled in its intensity by its former break-neck growth. Behind the bitter public spats over who will run and control the company, lies this possibility: investors and its pugilistic ex-CEO may be fighting over a shadow of its former self.

The emerging technologies on the Gartner Inc. Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017 reveal three distinct megatrends that will enable businesses to survive and thrive in the digital economy over the next five to 10 years. Artificial intelligence (AI) everywhere, transparently immersive experiences and digital platforms are the trends that will provide unrivaled intelligence, create profoundly new experiences and offer platforms that allow organizations to connect with new business ecosystems. The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report is the longest-running annual Gartner Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that business strategists, chief innovation officers, R&D leaders, entrepreneurs, global market developers and emerging-technology teams should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios. The Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle is unique among most Gartner Hype Cycles because it garners insights from more than 2,000 technologies into a succinct set of compelling emerging technologies and trends. This Hype Cycle specifically focuses on the set of technologies that is showing promise in delivering a high degree of competitive advantage over the next five to 10 years (see Figure 1).

Historically, some banking activities such as trading have been relying heavily on analytics and cutting edge algorithmic tools. The coming of age of powerful data analytics solutions combined with the development of intelligent algorithms have created new opportunities for financial institutions. In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Sebastien Meunier, Head of Digital for North America at Chappuis Halder & Co., discussed how these tools can be leveraged to develop a lasting competitive advantage in priority areas: customer analytics, financial crime prevention, regulatory compliance and risk management. Speaker Bio Sebastien Meunier is an expert in Innovation in Finance, with 14 years of experience in managing business and technology transformations in Financial Services, and among the top 10 Fintech influencers on social media. He is the Head of Digital for North America at the consulting firm Chappuis Halder & Co. Cloud computing is now being embraced by a majority of enterprises of all sizes.

Are you interested in understanding machine learning concepts and building real-time projects with R, but don't know where to start? Then, this is the perfect course for you! The aim of machine learning is to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, and find useful information from data. In addition to this, through incorporation with data analysis, machine learning can be used to perform predictive analysis. With machine learning, the analysis of business operations and processes is not limited to human scale thinking; machine scale analysis enables businesses to capture hidden values in big data.

Today, the question of artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in future warfare is becoming far more salient and dramatic than ever before. Rapid progress in driverless cars in the civilian economy has helped us all see what may become possible in the realm of conflict. All of a sudden, it seems, terminators are no longer the stuff of exotic and entertaining science-fiction movies, but a real possibility in the minds of some. Innovator Elon Musk warns that we need to start thinking about how to regulate AI before it destroys most human jobs and raises the risk of war. It is good that we start to think this way.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of addressing a large audience at a conference, presenting to a group of mixed professionals (including C-suite, Manager, Mid-level and executives, across a broad range of industry including IT, services govt, utilities, education, non-profit, hospital, health care, Financial services, insurance, automotive, Pharmaceuticals, aviation, aerospace, medical devices). The topic was, embracing and humanizing customer self-service channels; creating a personalized user experience in self-service channels. I have provided an overview of the presentation here for your convenience. At the conference I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Rohit Mandana and we had a very interesting discussion about life outside of our professional engagements and then as these things do, our passion for our professions jumped back in and we were back and hot on the trail of bots, chatbots, AI and the role that they are playing in reshaping life as we know it. Sure there's all the latest stuff like Google Home and Uber Driverless (although now suspended I believe this tech will proceed) but we're beyond that now.

We often talk about how technology is changing the world at a pace we can't keep up with. How driverless cars could see the end of millions of jobs, and the decline in hundreds of thousands of accidents that occur each year, or how artificial intelligence could help cure cancer, or potentially turn on us, leading to the end of civilization. While these futures are fascinating and scary to think about, one topic that is rarely discussed is how biological technology is going to change the world in even more staggering ways. I'm not talking about the development of new drugs or better EpiPens, but ideas like creating seeds that could one day grow into a fully fledged house, or growing human organs on computer chips to find cures for diseases, or even growing an entire human inside a pig. On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, I talked with D.A. Wallach, a rockstar turned investor, who explains how we are on the cusp of a biological revolution that could make the computing era seem like a tiny blip in history.