WhatsApp has rolled back its biggest update in years. Just weeks ago, Facebook announced that it would be adding its'stories' feature to the app, and removing text statuses at the same time. It brought WhatsApp in line with its other major apps, which all now include the stories tool that was once Snapchat's most famous feature. But immediate backlash has led WhatsApp to move the change back and add the text statuses that had been part of the app since its beginning, and have now been removed. Stories will continue to exist in the app, but they will work alongside the traditional text updates.

Editor's Note: This article first appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Scientific American's sister publication, as "Digitale Demokratie statt Datendiktatur." "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another." The digital revolution is in full swing. How will it change our world? The amount of data we produce doubles every year. In other words: in 2016 we produced as much data as in the entire history of humankind through 2015. Every minute we produce hundreds of thousands of Google searches and Facebook posts. These contain information that reveals how we think and feel. Soon, the things around us, possibly even our clothing, also will be connected with the Internet. It is estimated that in 10 years' time there will be 150 billion networked measuring sensors, 20 times more than people on Earth. Then, the amount of data will double every 12 hours. Many companies are already trying to turn this Big Data into Big Money. Everything will become intelligent; soon we will not only have smart phones, but also smart homes, smart factories and smart cities. Should we also expect these developments to result in smart nations and a smarter planet? The field of artificial intelligence is, indeed, making breathtaking advances. In particular, it is contributing to the automation of data analysis. Artificial intelligence is no longer programmed line by line, but is now capable of learning, thereby continuously developing itself. Recently, Google's DeepMind algorithm taught itself how to win 49 Atari games. Algorithms can now recognize handwritten language and patterns almost as well as humans and even complete some tasks better than them. They are able to describe the contents of photos and videos. Today 70% of all financial transactions are performed by algorithms. News content is, in part, automatically generated. This all has radical economic consequences: in the coming 10 to 20 years around half of today's jobs will be threatened by algorithms. It can be expected that supercomputers will soon surpass human capabilities in almost all areas--somewhere between 2020 and 2060. Experts are starting to ring alarm bells.

The US has brought hacking charges against Russian officials for the first time ever. The decision comes as federal officials continue to investigate whether Russian spies interfered with the 2016 presidential election by hacking the Democratic party, among others. The country launched cyber attacks that were calculated to help Donald Trump win the election, it has been claimed by intelligence agencies and some politicians. Though the Justice Department has previously charged Russians with cyber crime – and brought prosecutions against hackers sponsored by the Chinese and Iranian governments – the new indictments are the first time a criminal case has been brought against Russian government officials. 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.

Facebook is finally adding Stories to its news feed, completing its project to steal Snapchat's most famous picture. The company had already added the feature to the rest of its other apps, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. But the addition to the Facebook news feed is the biggest of all of those changes, shaking up the way that the app works entirely. At the top of the news feed, instead of the posts or the status update box, users will now see a series of circles with their friends faces in them. It will work the exact same as Instagram stories, which was added to the app last summer, and has gone on to become as big as Snapchat itself and taken many of the smaller app's most popular users. 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 US has charged two Russian spies with the biggest cyber attack ever carried out. The Department of Justice said that two "state-sponsored" Russian hackers were responsible for breaking into Yahoo and stealing 500 million accounts. The case would be the first ever brought against Russian officials. The charge comes amid increasing tensions between Russia and the US over the use cyber weapons and hacking. Multiple US intelligence agencies have accused Russian state-sponsored hackers of running a co-ordinated campaign to upset the result of the US election and increase the chances that Donald Trump would become president.

Thousands have flooded into Austin, Texas to experience the 31st Annual South by Southwest Convention and Festivals. Check out some of the sights and sounds from the first day. Transportation options in Austin, Texas, include fleets of rental bikes position around town. AUSTIN -- The cruise to autonomous transportation is alive, but first we've got to get past some roadblocks. That's the takeaway from SXSW Interactive, the tech portion of the Texas confab that wrapped Tuesday and once again drew engineers, executives and lawmakers focused on steering society through a mobility revolution.

After years of banning Japan's fish and agriculture, many countries might be willing to give the nation a second chance and import its goods. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 and the resulting radiation in the region caused 54 countries and regions to implement restrictions on certain Japanese goods. That number has shrunken to 33, with more nations likely to follow suit and lift the ban, the Japan Times reported Wednesday. Read: 'Unimaginable' Radiation At Fukushima So Destructive, Not Even Robots Can Survive "We are looking forward to the lifting of the South Korean import ban," Masao Atsumi, a sea-squirt farmer in Miyagi prefecture, told the Japan Times. An aerial view shows the Fukushima power plant in Fukushima, Japan, Feb. 26, 2012.

Serko, a corporate travel booking and expense management business, is like a baby, Kiwi version of Concur, the SAP-owned technology company that is a developer of software that help businesses manage travel expenses. Serko's travel booking tool is used by more than 60 percent of enterprise businesses in Australia and New Zealand. The world's largest travel management companies (namely, BCD Travel, American Express Global Business Travel, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, and Hogg Robinson Group) all resell Serko's tool to their customers in Asia Pacific. So it is of regional significance that Serko plans to unveil a fresh travel-and-expense management platform with artificial intelligence (AI) baked in. In July 2017, the company will release a corporate online booking user interface as an optional premium solution alongside its booking tool for its 3 million users.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the Netherlands, voters head to the polls tomorrow, in Europe's first big and closely watched election of the year. An ardent nationalist, running on an anti-immigrant agenda, is bidding for the prime minister's office, hoping to lead the way for similar candidates in France and Germany. The election also comes amid an escalating war of words between the Dutch government and Turkey over a referendum next month that could give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vast new powers. Just today, Erdogan accused Dutch troops of complicity in the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica. That's a charge which a Dutch court had previously cleared.

Google has announced a new update to Chrome, which promises to lower the web browser's impact on your computer's battery life. The company has been working to make Chrome less power-hungry for some time, with old rival Microsoft insistent that its own browser Edge is the more power-efficient of the two. Google says that Chrome 57 will throttle individual background tabs "by limiting the timer fire rate for background tabs using excessive power". 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. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.