Two and a half years ago, President Obama called on the FCC to classify broadband internet as a utility. It joined a small club that you know well: electricity, gas, and running water. And now this club may be welcoming yet another new member. Is artificial intelligence the newest utility? Are we witnessing the dawn of AI being as ubiquitous as running water?

Painful exercises in basic arithmetic are a vivid part of our elementary school memories. A multiplication like 3,752 6,901 carried out with just pencil and paper for assistance may well take up to a minute. Of course, today, with a cellphone always at hand, we can quickly check that the result of our little exercise is 25,892,552. Indeed, the processors in modern cellphones can together carry out more than 100 billion such operations per second. What's more, the chips consume just a few watts of power, making them vastly more efficient than our slow brains, which consume about 20 watts and need significantly more time to achieve the same result. Of course, the brain didn't evolve to perform arithmetic.

After bringing in Lamborghinis and Ferraris to patrol roads, Dubai police have enrolled a robotic officer, the first in a unit that aims to make up a quarter of the force by 2030. The robotic cop stood to attention Wednesday night at the foot of Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower, as tourists and passersby snapped selfie souvenir photos by its side. Wearing a police cap and moving on wheels, the robot features a computer touch-screen on its chest that can be used to report a crime or inquire about speeding tickets. At 5ft 5in tall and weighing 100kg, it can speak six languages and is designed to read facial expressions. "Our aim is to raise the number of robots to 25 percent of the police force by 2030," said Brigadier Khaled al-Razzooqi, head of Smart Services at Dubai police.

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning appear to be playing out across the country, with brands relying on enormous amounts of data to provide solutions to some of the trickiest problems. What was once the domain of a few, is now available across industries, with several e-commerce giants and even start-ups using the latest technologies to build high-impact solutions. Paola Norambuena, Chief Content Ofiicer at brand consultancy Interbrand, points out that firms are employing AI to solve real problems and push ahead competitively. From auto collision prevention to better control of health, and from better personal experiences to cyber security, several brands are utilising technology to improve lives, she adds. In a report, Interbrand has noted that AI has increased elevenfold since 2014, and has reiterated that technology does live up to its hype.

Background: IBM Watson for Oncology is an artificial intelligence cognitive computing system that provides confidence-ranked, evidence-based treatment recommendations for cancer. In the present study, we examine the level of agreement for lung and colorectal cancer therapy between the multidisciplinary tumour board from Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Bangalore, India, and Watson for Oncology. Methods: Watson for Oncology is a Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York, USA) trained cognitive computing system that uses natural language processing and machine learning to provide treatment recommendations. It processes structured and unstructured data from medical literature, treatment guidelines, medical records, imaging, lab and pathology reports, and the expertise of Memorial Sloan Kettering experts to formulate therapeutic recommendations. Treatment recommendations are provided in three categories: recommended, for consideration and not recommended.

Voice is starting to replace typing in online queries and it's becoming more accurate, according to Mary Meeker, partner at VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, in her 2017 Internet Trends report released Wednesday. Meeker's annual report is highly anticipated by techies, who scour the 355-slide deck that's chock-full of statistics, charts, trends and predictions. Voice is becoming more popular than typing in online search. Twenty percent of mobile searches were made using voice in 2016, according to the report. Meanwhile, voice recognition accuracy continues to improve and is now at about 95%.

Virginia-based private company Six3 Advanced Systems was awarded an $11-million fixed-fee contract "to design, develop, and validate system prototypes for a combined-arms squad, which combines humans and unmanned assets, ubiquitous communications and information," according to a Pentagon press release. Six3, a subsidiary to the major American defense contractor CACI International, provides sensor development and signal processing technologies for the US Intelligence Community and the military, according to Bloomberg. The statement added the next-generation system should bring "advanced capabilities in all domains to maximize squad performance in increasingly complex operational environments." The news follows scientific predictions that the future warfare will see extensive use of robotic platforms powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and equipped with next-generation weapons systems. Combat robots and military-use AI solutions will become an inherent part of the US military within the next 10-15 years, defense experts say.

Voice-controlled technology like Amazon Echo, Siri or hands-free features in Google Maps are things we're starting to take for granted. But as Mary Meeker's 2017 Internet Trends Report noted, voice controls are changing computer-human interfaces, and industries, broadly. Speech recognition or voice controls are being added to medical devices and business applications, even vehicles and industrial robotics. But there's a problem -- voice systems have been built for standard speech today. That leaves out millions of people who live with speech impairments, or who just have a strong accent. Now, a Tel Aviv-based startup called Voiceitt has raised $2 million in seed funding to translate into clear words speech that's not easily intelligible.

A toolkit used across Microsoft to achieve breakthroughs in artificial intelligence is generally available to the public via an open-source license, a team of researchers and software engineers announced today. "The 2.0 version of the toolkit is now in full release," said Chris Basoglu, a partner engineering manager at Microsoft. He has played a key role in developing Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (previously known as CNTK). The full release of Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit 2.0 for use in production-grade and enterprise-grade deep learning workloads includes hundreds of new features incorporated since the beta to streamline the process of deep learning and to ensure the toolkit's seamless integration throughout the wider AI ecosystem. New with the full release today is support for Keras, a user-friendly open-source neural network library that is popular with developers working on deep learning applications.

A Russian search firm is the latest to join the race to build a self-driving car. Yandex, which already operates a rideshare scheme to rival Uber in Moscow, has released footage of its first demonstration of the vehicle. And while the company may be late to enter the contest compared to its international opponents, it appears it may have what it takes to be a contender. Russia's largest technology firm Yandex, which already operates a rideshare scheme to rival Uber in Moscow, has released footage of its first demonstration of driverless technology (pictured) Yandex, which already operates a rideshare scheme to rival Uber in Moscow, has released footage of its first demonstration of driverless technology. In a video released yesterday a modified Toyota Prius can be seen picking up a passenger before winding its way through narrow streets to drop them off a their destination.