Kaspar, a humanoid robot designed to help children with autism, is set to be trialled by the NHS. The child-sized robot was created by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire and is programmed to respond to touch. Kaspar is designed to play games with children, using a collection of skin sensors placed on various parts of its body to "encourage certain tactile behaviours" and discourage "inappropriate" ones. It will be used to teach five-to-ten year-olds who have recently been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) how to socialise and communicate. This is because research indicates that early intervention increases the likelihood of improved long-term outcomes for children with the condition.

Washington DC - Two journalists who say they have been targeted by the United States have filed a complaint against the American government, accusing it of putting them on a "kill list" and demanding to be taken off it. The complaint was filed in the US District Court of the District of Columbia on Thursday on behalf of Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan - a dual Pakistani-Syrian citizen who works for Al Jazeera and Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American who has freelanced for Al Jazeera. It accuses the US government of using information gathered via its Skynet surveillance programme, which has been used to guide drone strikes on "terror suspects". The plaintiffs accuse the United States of conspiracy to commit murder outside its borders and violating international law on targeting civilians. Filed by UK-based rights group Reprieve and the Washington DC-based law firm Lewis Baach, the complaint asks the court to declare the journalists' inclusion on the list illegal, and issue an injunction removing their names until they can review the secret evidence against them.

Artificial intelligence has come a long way in the 20 years since International Business Machines Corp.'s Deep Blue beat world champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game chess match, or even the six years since Watson trounced Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! Computers have beaten top human players at checkers, backgammon, poker, and go. Add to the list Super Smash Bros. Melee, a 2001 Nintendo Co. fighting game that lets you pit, say, Mario against Pikachu. Humanity has MIT researchers to thank for this defeat, chronicled in a paper they published in February, but Melee isn't the only video game getting a lot of playtime from learning machines. AI software has cracked Super Mario Bros.; early Atari SA games such as Space Invaders; arcade mainstays Pac-Man and Mortal Kombat; even mobile favorite Angry Birds.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) yesterday announced a global strategic partnership to deliver joint solutions designed to leverage artificial intelligence and enable companies to make smarter decisions, faster than ever before. With the partnership, IBM Watson, the leading AI platform for business, and Salesforce Einstein, AI that powers the world's #1 CRM, will seamlessly connect to enable an entirely new level of intelligent customer engagement across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more. IBM is also strategically investing in its Global Business Services capabilities for Salesforce with a new practice to help clients rapidly deploy the combined IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein capabilities. The partnership will bring new insights from Watson directly into the Salesforce Intelligent Customer Success Platform, combining deep customer insights from Salesforce Einstein with Watson's structured and unstructured data across many sources and industries including weather, healthcare, financial services and retail. Together, Watson and Einstein will ingest, reason over and derive recommendations to accelerate decision making and drive greater customer success.

Dr. Shafiq Rab, CIO of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, uses his background in public health to inform his IT vision. Dr. Rab, who completed his medical degree and internal medicine residency at Karachi, Pakistan-based Dow Medical College, had his interest in public health piqued during one of his first physician jobs. While treating an urban squatters settlement in Pakistan, he worked with non-governmental organizations to address the infant mortality rate, mainly by bringing clean drinking water to its residents. "That's how I got involved in healthcare," he says. "And I remain committed to healthcare.

Rent application denials, Japanese-only recruitment and racist taunts are among the most rampant forms of discrimination faced by foreign residents in Japan, according to the results of the country's first nationwide survey on the issue, released Friday. The unprecedented survey of 18,500 expats of varying nationalities at the end of last year paints a comprehensive picture of deeply rooted discrimination in Japan as the nation struggles to acclimate to a recent surge in foreign residents and braces for an even greater surge in tourists in the lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It also represents the latest in a series of fledgling steps taken by Japan to curb racism, following last year's first-ever video analysis by the Justice Ministry of anti-Korea demonstrations and the enactment of a law to eradicate hate speech. In carrying out the survey, the Justice Ministry commissioned the Center for Human Rights Education and Training, a public foundation, to mail questionnaires to non-Japanese residents in 37 municipalities nationwide. Of the 18,500, 4,252 men and women, or 23.0 percent, provided valid responses.

Facebook has announced that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey is leaving the company. The 24-year-old has kept an extremely low profile after it emerged last year that he had been funding a secret meme factory called Nimble America, to support Donald Trump's presidential bid. The group was revealed on Reddit's "The Donald" forum last September, alongside posts from a user called NimbleRichMan. 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.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are dominating insurtech start-up spending according to a report from research firm Accenture. The report, titled "The Rise of InsurTech", said AI and IoT now account for almost half of total investment in insurance technology (insurtech) startups globally. "We've seen a rapid acceleration of investment into and deal activity around intelligent automation and IoT start-ups over the last 12 months," said co-author of the report and Accenture's digital & innovation lead in the company's financial services practice in the UK and Ireland, Roy Jubraj. The research, which includes new analysis of CB Insights data on 450 insurtech deals over the last three years, found deals based on AI and IoT rose by 79 per cent last year. Even though the two technologies represented only one-quarter (24 per cent) of the 216 insurtech deals globally last year, they accounted for 44 per cent or US$711 million of total insurtech investment – compared with just 10 per cent of global insurtech investment in 2015.

The Dalian Wanda Group has partnered with IBM to sell the American company s Watson, an artificial intelligence system, and a cloud service to Chinese companies. It is another step into internet-related businesses for the Chinese commercial property giant. The aim is to spread the use of Watson in China and bolster the competitiveness of Chinese companies. Dalian Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin recently signed the partnership agreement with IBM CEO Ginni Rometty in Beijing. Dalian Wanda said the two companies will later thrash out details of the partnership. A unit of the Chinese conglomerate will manage the two IBM services.

On this last day of the quarter, the stock market is so tickled with its Q1 spoils that it's about to give a bit back. That is how it usually goes when the S&P 500 is up nicely for a three-month stretch, note Bespoke Investment Group's number crunchers. They checked out how the last trading day has gone when the S&P is up at least 5% for a quarter. That final session is typically a bust, with the index retreating 0.4% on average, according to Bespoke's look at the last eight years. But who knows exactly how the S&P will close today?