Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke at a public event in India on Monday, stressing upon the immense potential of artificial intelligence (AI), calling it the "ultimate breakthrough" in technology. SEE ALSO: Here's why those tech billionaires are throwing millions at ethical AI "Because for all the advances in computer interface, there is nothing to beat language [the ability to do human-level speech recognition]," he said during a fireside chat with Nandan Nilekani -- India's premier technocrat and the brain behind the Aadhaar identification system. The chat was streamed live on the Microsoft Developer page on Facebook. Nadella and Nilekani were later joined by Binny Bansal, CEO of Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce company that announced a cloud partnership with Microsoft's Azure. Calling AI "the third run time", Nadella said, "If the operating system was the first run time, the second run time you could say was the browser, and the third run time can actually be the agent. Because in some sense, the agent knows you, your work context, and knows the work. And that's how we are building Cortana. We are giving it a really natural language understanding."

Facebook is testing a new feature that makes it easier for your friends to track you down on rival social networks. The site has started displaying prominent links to some users' other social media accounts, including Instagram, Skype, Pinterest, Twitter, VKontakte, LinkedIn, Snapchat and YouTube. They appear as large buttons, which sit high up on users' profiles between the Featured Photos section and About/Photos/Friends menu bar, allowing a user's entire online presence to be accessed almost instantly. Facebook users have long been able to include links to their other social media profiles in their About section, but this feature appears to take any note of subtlety away. 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.

Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) must be harnessed strategically in national building to provide equal access to opportunities to all, Nadan Nilekani, the former chairman of India's Unique ID Authority, said during a conference in Bengaluru on Monday. Failure to do so will invite a backlash, Nilekani warned, as large numbers of people see themselves being left out with the fruits of technological advancement benefiting only a few. "How do we use all this stuff that you guys have built and flip it around to benefit large numbers of people, and I think that is very important," Nilekani said in a discussion with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft Corp, at a conference on Artificial Intelligence organised by the company. "If we don't do that, I think the backlash, as we've seen in the US, is going to be quite a lot." Nilekani wasn't available for a follow-on discussion, but he was probably referring to many more Americans voting for Donald Trump -- helping Trump become their president -- than any pundits had anticipated, as they feared that his opponent Hillary Clinton represented the elite.

It's no RoboCop, but it'll come when it senses trouble. China's new robot police officers have started patrolling streets. The E-Patrol Robot Sheriff (E巡机器警长) is able to track and follow potential criminals or suspicious people via facial recognition, according to the Economic Daily. Besides fighting crime, the robot officer is also capable of monitoring air quality and temperature, and is pipped to be able to track potential criminal activity, safety hazards and potential fires. The 1.6 meter-tall robot moves autonomously using a system of cameras, and is currently at the Zhengzhou East Railway Station in Henan, where it is able to identify staff at the station by their work passes.

In a bid to boost its prospects in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), Apple has acquired Israel-based startup RealFace that develops deep learning-based face authentication technology, media reported on Monday. Reported by Calcalist, the acquisition is to be worth roughly $2 million (roughly Rs. 13.39 crores). A Times of Israel report cites Startup Nation Central to note RealFace had raised $1 million in funding thus far, employed about 10 people, and had sales operations China, Europe, Israel, and the US. Set up in 2014 by Adi Eckhouse Barzilai and Aviv Mader, RealFace has developed a facial recognition software that offers users a smart biometric login, aiming to make passwords redundant when accessing mobile devices or PCs. The firm's first app - Pickeez - selects the best photos from the user's album.

NEW YORK: Spanish lender Banco Santander SA has invested in two artificial-intelligence companies, part of the financial industry's increased focus on technology smart enough to mimic human thinking, sources familiar with the deals told Reuters. The bank's venture arm, Santander InnoVentures, bought stakes in Personetics Technologies, which provides automated customer service, and Gridspace, whose software can learn and interpret language the way a person would, the sources said. The size of the investments could not be determined and the sources asked not to be named because they were not allowed to disclose the information publicly. The deals underscore how lenders have become more interested in using artificial intelligence for a wide variety of tasks, including hiring, spotting fraud, improving call centres and recommending products for customers. Personetics, which has offices in New York, London and Tel Aviv, creates "chatbots" that can respond to customer questions through popular messaging platforms like Facebook Inc's Messenger.

Feedback plc (LON:FDBK) expects to see a substantial increase in revenue from its TexRAD software in the second half of the current financial year. The medical imaging firm has previously reported a significant number of purchase orders for research versions of TexRAD in the first half of its current financial year (i.e. to the end of November), but investors hoping this would show through immediately in the interim results were disappointed. The majority of the installations were done just before the end of the reporting period so the sales made only a modest contribution to revenue. Nevertheless, Feedback trimmed its half-year loss before tax to £130,000 from a loss the year before of £155,000 on revenue that dipped to £204,000 from £225,000. "We are encouraged by the continued strong interest shown in TexRAD and the number of research papers being published, which highlight its numerous potential applications, particularly in areas such as liver, prostate and adrenal cancers," the company said.

When Apple launched an online shop for smartphone apps, few expected it would result in over 140 billion app downloads over a little more than seven years. And although the number will continue to increase this year, the app economy is reaching maturity. In fact, approximately 23% of apps are abandoned after a single use. Users are spending an increasing amount of time in just two to three apps -- social media and messaging. The number of social media users worldwide is expected to reach 2.95 billion by 2020, and 2.5 billion people already have at least one messaging app on their phone.

Recently, it's been speculated that Apple may forgo its Touch ID feature on the upcoming iPhone 8 in favour of facial recognition, and the company's latest acquisition seems to line up pretty neatly with this. Tel Aviv cybertech startup, Realface, has just been bought by Apple for what is estimated to be a few million dollars. The Israeli company is responsible for facial recognition software that integrates artificial intelligence, specifically for use in smart and secure login systems. The ill-fated Samsung Galaxy Note 7 featured iris scanning, and it worked pretty well, but if the iPhone 8 is to get facial recognition, it could be the next considerable step for biometric security in the major phone brands since the adoption of fingerprint scanning. Despite the convenience and coolness of facial recognition, it's still far from flawless, so Apple will have to be pretty confident with their technology if they are to implement it in future flagships.

This kind of question has been on IQ tests for years and the answer, it turns out, depends a good deal on which era you live in. Back in the down-home, cotton-spinning, 19th century you'd be right in thinking you use dogs to hunt rabbits. Shift forward to the glass-fronted skyscrapers of the 20th century Information Age and there was a new right answer; they are both mammals. But, as humans leapfrog into the 21st century of Artificial Intelligence (AI), robots and machine learning, is there an even newer answer? And if so, what is it?