If humankind wants to survive the rise of artificial intelligence, we need to embrace the machines and become a melded cyborg organism, projected Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, on Monday. Enhancing our minds is Musk's answer to finding the meaning of life. Musk has been a proponent of the human-A.I. mind-meld for a while: He's floated the idea of neural lace, a hypothetical computer processing net that can be injected into your brain to enhance intelligence. He seems pretty serious about enhancing humans to survive an A.I. takeover. "When I was a kid, I was wondering, 'What's the meaning of life -- you know, why are we here, what's it all about?' And I came to the conclusion that what really matters is trying to understand the right questions to ask. And the more that we can increase the scope and scale of human consciousness, the better we are able to ask these questions."

In 2016, an estimated 400 million people interacted with IBM's Watson: The artificial intelligence platform now processes data to assist in everything from oncology treatments to NBA draft picks. In the past year, dozens of companies, including GM, Japan Airlines, Hilton, and Pfizer, have launched initiatives using IBM's intelligence. Watson owes its ubiquity to the dozens of new AI tools, including emotional analysis and image recognition, that it offers developers. "Our mission is to let people own their own AI," says David Kenny, general manager of IBM Watson. Retail outlets such as Macy's and the Mall of America are employing Watson's language-processing tools to help shoppers navigate their stores.

How do you avoid getting made obsolete by artificial intelligence in a time when resources and research are largely being funnelled toward improving that area of tech? He's spoken about the potential of brain interfaces, including a "neural lace," before, but at the launch of Tesla in UAE during the World Government Summit in Dubai on Monday, Musk articulated more clearly why we might seek to deep our ties to our computing devices in the near future. Musk's comments recalled those made at Recode's Code Conference last year, in which he discussed a "neural lace" that would interface directly with the brain, letting users communicate thoughts with computers with much more bandwidth and much less latency than is currently possible via input mechanisms like keyboard and mouse. The need for this, he said on Monday in Dubai, could "achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence, and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem," reports CNBC. AI's potential for disruption lies not only in its ability to perform specific tasks more efficiently than its human creators, but also in how fast it can communicate with other networked devices – the speed advantage gives computers almost a trillion-fold speed edge when it comes to relaying their thoughts to other computer systems, vs. the pace at which people can convey and retrieve information via things like typed text or even voice queries.

My thirties started off in countries ravaged by environmental destruction and dictatorships. Back then, I was a journalist for National Geographic, spending most of my time abroad, even though I still called Los Angeles--my birth city--home. In the 100 countries I visited, I reported on some harrowing stories: the Killing Fields in Cambodia, the near total deforestation of Paraguay, and the tense nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan. I always hoped my words and on-camera television commentary brought some sanity and peace to the chaos. While on assignment in Vietnam near the demilitarized zone, a near-miss with a landmine that could have been catastrophic sent me back home to the safety of the United States.

Otto's California Truck Testing May Depend on Whether Drivers Keep a Foot on the Accelerator or Not When Otto first began testing its technology in California last year, a co-founder of the company sought to assure regulators it was developing driver-assistance systems on the state's public roads and not self-driving semi trucks. Otto, which hopes to develop fully self-driving trucks, would not be required to obtain an autonomous-testing permit from the state if it was only testing driver-assistance features. But it would be Read More ... Places: Americas North America United States West Pacific California Why is Ford investing $1 billion over five years in a Pittsburgh startup called Argo AI? It's looking to gain an edge in self-driving car technology in the four-year countdown to 2021. That's when Ford has said it will be shipping cars with autonomous driving. Several other automakers said in 2016 they'd have self-driving cars within five years, too.

"Microsoft Monday" takes a look back at the past week of news related to Microsoft. This week, "Microsoft Monday" includes details about the acquisition of "Wiki" by Agile Extensions, a leaked Project NEON screenshot hinting at Windows 10 design changes, a federal judge ruling in favor of Microsoft in regards to the Justice Department lawsuit, the new suggested reminders feature for Cortana, Visual Studio 2017 launching on March 7th, the Surface Hub "Try & Buy Program" and more! In the past, Microsoft has been notorious for making design changes that did not sit well with consumers like we have seen in Windows Vista and Windows 8. Tom Hounsell, the creator of a Windows build tracker website called BuildFeed, published this leaked screenshot of the Windows 10 Project NEON design: The most notable Project NEON change is the removal of the window borders. This new user interface change could cause confusion in terms of resizing and moving windows. For example, some users may be confused about where to place the mouse in order to perform those functions.

PARIS – A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, a supergiant red star ended its life in a spectacular explosion known as a supernova. The light from that event took 160 million years to reach Earth where, in a stroke of luck, robot telescopes scanning the night sky happened upon it on Oct. 6, 2013. On Monday, astronomers said the chance discovery allowed them to study the earliest phase of a supernova yet -- just three hours after it erupted. "We immediately knew that what we have in hand is extremely unique," Ofer Yaron of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, lead author of a study in the journal Nature Physics, told AFP. "We managed to observe this event when (it was) very young." Scientists are keen to study the early phases of supernovae, seeking insights into the moments just before massive stars expire in such dramatic fashion.

BENGALURU: SigTuple, an artificial intelligence-based medical technology startup, has raised $5.8 million (Rs 38.6 crore approximately) led by Accel Partners along with institutional investors such as IDG Ventures India, VH Capital, Endiya Partners and Pi Ventures. Other prominent investors such as Amit Singhal, senior vice-president of engineering at Uber, Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal (Axilor Ventures) have also joined them. Flipkart cofounders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, who along with Accel led a seed round of $740,000 in October 2015, have also invested again. SigTuple will use the latest round of funding to expand the team, take the product to user-adoption stage followed by commercialisation, and obtain regulatory clearances for global markets. "Our goal is to develop intelligent, scalable and affordable disease screening solutions which can empower the medical experts and facilitate quality healthcare delivery.Our initial focus is on the solutions for the screening tests so that we can positively impact a larger population not only in India but globally," said Rohit Kumar Pandey, chief executive of SigTuple.

Dubai has tested a Chinese prototype of a self-driving hover-taxi, its transport authority said on Monday, with the aim of introducing the aerial vehicle in the emirate by July. The test of the one-man electric vehicle comes as the city state in the United Arab Emirates seeks to ensure a quarter of its means of transport are self-driving by 2030. The EHang 184 can travel on a programmed course at 100 kilometres an hour (60 mph) at an altitude of 300 metres (1,000 feet), the authority said in a statement. A passenger simply needs to select a destination for the autonomous taxi to take off, fly the route and touch down in the chosen spot monitored by a ground control centre, it said. The vehicle, made by Chinese drone manufacturer EHang, can recharge in two hours and make trips of up to 30 minutes.

A factory in Dongguan, China, does not regret laying off almost all of its people in favor of artificial intelligence. Changying Precision Technology Company replaced 590 human workers, or 90% of its workforce, with robots. What used to be manned by 650 people is now run by a dismal 60, primarily tasked to oversee that the machines perform in optimum conditions. Following the move, the company, which focuses on mobile phone production, saw pieces per person per month skyrocket from 8,000 to 21,000, Monetary Watch said. There's also the added fact that the robots were still on trial.