Security experts have discovered a vulnerability in WhatsApp, that could have allowed hackers to take over "hundreds of millions" of users' accounts and access everything in them. The flaw was discovered by Check Point and reported to WhatsApp on 7 March. The company has since taken steps to fix the issue. It affected WhatsApp's online platform, WhatsApp Web, which allows users to chat with their friends from a computer instead of their phone. 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.

LONDON: Sixty-eight per cent of organisations use artificial intelligence (AI) for IT functions, but 70 per cent believe AIs greatest impact by 2020 will be in marketing, customer service, finance and HR, a new study said on Wednesday. According to global IT consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), organisations with the greatest financial improvements from AI investments expect three times as many new AI-related roles by 2020 as compared to companies with smallest improvements. "Given the increasing digital disruption across every industry and the public sector, AI should become a key and integrated component of an organisation's strategy," said K Ananth Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer of TCS, in a statement. Eighty-four per cent of companies see the use of AI as "essential" to competitiveness, with a further 50 per cent seeing the technology as "transformative". Financial investments in AI are set to rise, as seven per cent of companies each earmarked at least $250 million toward AI in 2016 and two per cent already plan to invest more than $1 billion by 2020, likely looking to gain a competitive advantage as early adopters, the findings showed.

The Nintendo Switch, which has been all but unavailable for weeks, is finally coming back into stock. The new console was released on 3 March. But almost all shops had entirely sold all their pre-orders before then, and as soon as it went on sale it was unavailable again. But a number of retailers are now stocking the console, and others are offering pre-orders ahead of likely being restocked soon. 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.

Major travel agency H.I.S. Co. on Wednesday celebrated the opening of its second robot-staffed Henn na Hotel. The new location is near the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture. The name is a play on a Japanese word meaning strange. It is the company's first opening of a hotel staffed by robots in the Kanto region, and there are plans in the works to launch 100 more, including overseas, within the next five years. The aim of Henn na Hotel "is not about being strange, it's about transforming and evolving," Hideo Sawada, founder and chairman of H.I.S., said during an opening ceremony held the same day.

As artificial intelligence becomes more powerful, people need to make sure it's not used by authoritarian regimes to centralize power and target certain populations, Microsoft Research's Kate Crawford warned on Sunday. In her SXSW session, titled Dark Days: AI and the Rise of Fascism, Crawford, who studies the social impact of machine learning and large-scale data systems, explained ways that automated systems and their encoded biases can be misused, particularly when they fall into the wrong hands. "Just as we are seeing a step function increase in the spread of AI, something else is happening: the rise of ultra-nationalism, rightwing authoritarianism and fascism," she said. All of these movements have shared characteristics, including the desire to centralize power, track populations, demonize outsiders and claim authority and neutrality without being accountable. Machine intelligence can be a powerful part of the power playbook, she said.

Nearly three years ago, Leka won the Grand Prize at the 2014 Robot Launch competition for their robotic toy set on changing the way children with developmental disorders learn, play and progress. Leka will be the first interactive tool for children with developmental disorders that is available for direct purchase to the public. Designed for use in the home and not limited to a therapist's office, Leka enables streamlined communication between therapists, parents and children easier, more efficient and more accessible through its monitoring platform. Leka's co-founder and CEO, Ladislas de Toldi, writes about Leka's progress since the Robot Launch competition and where the company is headed in the next year. Since winning the Robot Launch competition in 2014, Leka has made immense progress and is well on it's way to getting in the hands of exceptional children around the globe.

SoftBank Group Corp. Chairman Masayoshi Son promised Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud Salman that the telecom conglomerate will help Saudi Arabia prosper through investment. Speaking to reporters after their meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday, Son quoted the king as telling him he was greatly looking forward to the investment move. With input from several backers, including a Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, SoftBank Group is set to launch an investment fund that could reach up to ¥10 trillion ($87.1 billion). Son said he gave the 81-year-old king the company's humanoid robot Pepper. The talks came a day after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the king announced a plan to create special economic zones in Saudi Arabia to promote investment by Japanese companies.

Thousands of Twitter accounts have been posting horrifying messages in Turkish, and there is nothing their owners can do about it. Many of the world's biggest publishers, companies and personalities have had their accounts taken over and used to post Nazi swastikas and references to Germany and the Netherlands. The messages are written in Turkish, make reference to the country's political situation and come amid heightened tensions between Turkey and the Netherlands after the latter kicked out two Turkish ministers and banned them from rallying. 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.

For our non-US readers, March Madness is a nickname given to NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments. It is a sports phenomenon that is very popular in the US. The affliction causes many people to fill a bracket to predict who will win at each stage. Offices typically have a March Madness pool, with the winner getting the prize. New KDnuggets Cartoon looks at what happens when AI masters the March Madness.

BENGALURU: Artificial Intelligence is expected to generate $100-120 billion by 2025 in productivity-led gains for the global ITBPM service providers, particularly in areas of consulting, engineering services, application development and others, a report by the Boston Consulting Group said. The report added that artificial intelligence could open up more than $400 billion in new addressable market over the next seven-to-ten years. "AI will completely redefine what is considered core, mid-or back-office ANIMI and help IT-BPM players penetrate'heart of the business' processes within verticals through BPaaS and domain-led solutions," BCG said. "This translates into 5-7 percentage points EBITDA impact for IT-BPM service providers" Indian IT players have already started investing in artificial insurance. Tata Consultancy Services has the the Ignio platform, Wipro has its Holmes platform, Infosys has the MANA platform, and HCL Technologies has a platform called DryICE. The consultancy, which put out the report in conjunction with the National Association of Software and Services Companies, outlined steps that companies should take to do well in the AI wave.