Afghanistan team member Somaya Faryuqi, right, has the flag of Afghanistan drawn on her cheek prior to the opening ceremony for the FIRST Global Challenge 2017, in Washington, Sunday, July 16, 2017. They will be competing against entrants from more than 150 countries in the FIRST Global Challenge. It's the first annual robotics competition designed to encourage youths to pursue careers in math and science. Afghanistan team member Somaya Faryuqi, right, has the flag of Afghanistan drawn on her cheek prior to the opening ceremony for the FIRST Global Challenge 2017, in Washington, Sunday, July 16, 2017. They will be competing against entrants from more than 150 countries in the FIRST Global Challenge.

Japan's space agency has released photos and videos taken on board the International Space Station (ISS) by its grapefruit-sized robot drone. The drone, called Internal Ball Camera (or Int-Ball), can be maneuvered by controllers and researchers from Earth, according a press release from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The camera-equipped Int-Ball has glowing blue eyes, weighs 2.2 pounds and can move in any direction. It was created to help take videos of astronauts' work and experiments and send them back to the ground. JAXA says the Int-Ball can help cut astronauts' working hours by up to 10%.

"A new coat, please," you say to the store robot, in a bit of a hurry. It notices that you're in no mood for chit-chat and already knows that you have little time to spare on Thursday nights. The robot immediately presents three stylish coats, of course in your perfect size. Yes, in 2030 you'll even be comfortable shopping in an actual brick-and-mortar store. And all of that will be made possible thanks to artificial intelligence. Ten years ago, we were very impressed with Siri, but now it's become quite common to communicate with devices and programs.

Fintech is the new gold rush for investors, growing from 10% in 2016, to a staggering $23.2 billion, with China and USA leading the market. This boost is powered by the growing capabilities of machine learning and artificial intelligence. It is an idea whose time has come, as the computational and storing capabilities available today can record and process the impressive quantities of big data necessary to fuel the algorithms. AI has already proven its capabilities in retail, healthcare, and trading, and therefore, looks like a safe bet. The only question now is just how much ruling power will the algorithms get?

Tantalising new images of what Atari's first games console in more than 20 years could look like have been revealed. The Ataribox will feature black ribbed lines and wood panelling reminiscent of the firm's original console, the 2600, released in 1977. The company released the sneak preview in an email sent to out to fans today. Tantalising new images of Atari's first games console in more than 20 years have been revealed. The Ataribox (pictured) will feature black ribbed lines and wood panelling reminiscent of the firm's original console, the 2600, released in 1977 Tantalising new images of Atari's first games console in more than 20 years have been revealed.

Government plans to force age verification checks on pornographic websites could expose everyone's most private internet history, according to experts. The Open Rights Group has warned that the plans could lead to porn companies being forced to create databases of what everyone has watched. And the government is not doing enough to protect that database while pressing ahead with the plans, its executive director Jim Killock has said. "Age verification could lead to porn companies building databases of the UK's porn habits, which could be vulnerable to Ashley Madison style hacks," Mr Killock said. "The Government has repeatedly refused to ensure that there is a legal duty for age verification providers to protect the privacy of web users." 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.

YouTube has stopped working for some users. People are seeing a message reading "500 internal server error", rather than the videos they want to watch. This is the second round of issues the site has experienced today, following an outage earlier in the morning. 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. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Lyft has spent a lot of time building tools that help it simulate the results of machine learning algorithms, and the company plans to make these tools more broadly available in the near future. The company's simulators are a key part of its machine learning development process, according to Erbil Karaman, the head of product for Lyft's marketplace team. When Lyft first starts testing machine learning models, they get run through simulators to figure out their early impact. "That does model emulation and looks at what are called hyper parameters and some of the outcomes that we care about and tries to tell us early signals for what this model can do differently from other models," Karaman said during a panel at VentureBeat's MB 2017 conference in San Francisco. The company's routing algorithm, pricing algorithm, driver-matching algorithm, and other systems all rely on machine learning models to one degree or another.

Alibaba Health unveiled this week its first artificial intelligence service for disease diagnosis, offering hope that advanced technology will alleviate the workload of mainland Chinese physicians in a nation suffering from an acute shortage of doctors. The AI solution, called Doctor You, can be used for medical image diagnosis of CT scans to identify inflammatory cells in human organs, which can be an early indicator of cancer. "It will soon serve as an assistant to physicians at a number of hospitals in the country,"said Ke Yan, a vice president with Ali Health, adding that the technology could lower error rates and improve efficiency. "Our expectation is that, within the coming decade, AI will be capable of taking over half of the workload from doctors in China." The world's most populous nation suffers from a shortage of medical practitioners, with the World Health Organisation estimating there are only 1.5 physicians available for every 1,000 people, compared with 2.4 in the US and 2.8 in the UK.

Defined as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programmes" by the late John McCarthy--one of the founding fathers of the discipline--Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has subtly made inroads into the daily lives of Indian citizens in the form of app-based cab aggregators and digital assistants on smartphones. However, public policy in India has not been able to take much advantage of AI applications, suggests a report published jointly by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) and consulting firm PwC. The report titled Artificial Intelligence and Robotics–2017 believes that national initiatives like Make in India, Skill India and Digital India could immensely benefit from AI technologies. Alternatively, early public sector interest in AI could trigger a spurt of activity in the AI field in India. AI, for instance, can be applied to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiatives such as the Digital India initiative, Skill India and Make in India; in large-scale public endeavours ranging from crop insurance schemes, tax fraud detection, and detecting subsidy leakage, and to helping hone the country's defence strategy.