The next wave of IT innovation will be powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. We look at the ways companies can take advantage of it and how to get started. Revenue for cognitive and artificial intelligence systems will hit $12.5 billion in 2017, up 59.3 percent from a year ago, according to IDC. Through 2020, these AI systems will top $46 billion, up 54.4 percent on a compound annual growth rate. The biggest portion of that spending in 2017 will go to cognitive applications. Cognitive and AI software platforms with tools to organize, access and analyze data will see spending of $2.5 billion.

In recent years, the rapid advance of artificial intelligence has evoked cries of alarm from billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and legendary physicist Stephen Hawking. Others, including the eccentric futurist Ray Kurzweil, have embraced the coming of true machine intelligence, suggesting that we might merge with the computers, gaining superintelligence and immortality in the process. As it turns out, we may not have to wait much longer. This morning, a group of research scientists at Google DeepMind announced that they had inadvertently solved the riddle of artificial general intelligence (AGI). Their approach relies upon a beguilingly simple technique called symmetrically toroidal asynchronous bisecting convolutions.

A soft-bodied robot that swims like a manta ray has been engineered to spy on underwater creatures without disturbing them. The mostly transparent robot has no motor or other rigid machinery and is much faster than other soft robotic fish. The goal is to use the robot to explore underwater areas, says Tiefeng Li at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. It could be used to investigate a submerged ship or plane wreck, or survey coral reefs. "The soft body will make it easy for the robot to sneak through reefs without damaging them," he says.

Driverless pods have started started carrying members of the public around in North Greenwich, London, as part of the GATEway Project. The autonomous vehicles aren't fitted with a steering wheel or a brake pedal, and instead use a collection of five cameras and three lasers to detect and avoid obstacles on a two-mile route near the O2. They can see up to 100m ahead and are capable of performing an emergency stop if necessary, though they have a top speed of just 10mph. The prototype pods being used in Greenwich can carry four passengers at a time, but each of them will have a trained person on board during the three-week trial. 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.

Executives at Chinese Internet giants, including Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, are focusing on the development of artificial intelligence and believe the next decades will be a golden age for the industry. "We used to see artificial intelligence only as a way to improve our computing and processing abilities. But, actually, AI can use data for self study and make our rules," said Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of Tencent, at the China IT Summit in Shenzhen on Sunday. In March 2016, Google's artificial intelligence program AlphaGo scored a 4-1 victory over South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol in a five-round showdown. The machine's victory was noted by AI enthusiasts around the world.

Here's some good news for the day: life expectancy is continuing to increase, and shows no sign of slowing down. More people than ever before are reaching the milestone of 100 years of age. In fact if the Queen is still sending out telegrams to centenarians, she will soon need an industrial size mail house to keep up with demand! Sure, there are pockets around the world – called bluezones – where the prevailing lifestyles have seen concentrations of the world's oldest people. These zones include Sardinia in Italy and Okinawa in Japan, with research suggesting climate, diet and family structures have helped driven this phenomena.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is racing fast with booming start-ups, in terms of popularity and wide acceptability for its immense possibilities to boost productivity and propel economic growth. Every industry, be it e-commerce or education or fashion, is trying to introduce AI in every way conceivable to get the desired results. Prakash Mallya, Managing Director, Intel South Asia, shared his insight into Artificial Intelligence and talked about India's need for the same, on the sidelines of an event to mark Intel AI Day. "We conceptualized the AI Day a few months ago to bring together different industries, even communities and ecosystems to talk about Artificial Intelligence. Intel's point of view is that other than this one obvious reason, the event can also serve as an opportunity to seek and receive feedback on the same, hold discussions with ecosystems on how we can work jointly to accelerate the implementation or usage of AI and transform lives of every individual in the country," he said.

Scientists have developed a self-healing material that could be used for smartphone screens as soon as 2020. This wouldn't be the first time we've seen so-called "self-healing" technology used in smartphones. The LG G Flex 2, which came out in 2015, features a "self-healing" back panel that's claimed to repair "everyday scratches" in ten seconds. 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.

The Commander of the US Air Force's Air Mobility Command wants to develop "Star Trek" electronic cloaking technologies to protect military aircraft. General Carlton Everhart has called for Silicon Valley technology companies, specialists at the Pentagon's new innovation office and the wider defense industry to build something capable of altering a plane's radar image, to either hide it completely or trick the system into thinking it's in an entirely different location. One of Air Mobility Command's responsibilities is refuelling US armed forces aircraft in mid-air. General Everhart says he'd like to see both brand new and bulkier, first-generation Air Mobility Command aircraft receive the treatment, which he believes will have the dual-benefit of also keeping fighter jets hidden from enemies. 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.

It has been years since video games surpassed blockbuster movies as the biggest releases in media, but that's never stopped games makers wanting to get a slice of the action on the big screen. Now Call of Duty's makers Activision Blizzard are planning an assault to rival Disney's Marvel Universe. It plans to use the multi-layered, interconnected approach that has made Marvel's superheroes a dominant force in cinema to turn the first-person shooter into an all-conquering film franchise of its own. Two people are tasked with pulling that off, Stacey Sher and Nick van Dyk, the co-presidents of Activision Blizzard Studios, an in-house production division that hopes to succeed where almost everyone else has failed by turning games into commercially and critically successful film and TV. According to the pair, work on the Call of Duty films has already generated multiple scripts, and involved extensive research with military experts and retired soldiers.