BENGALURU: IBM's new India head Karan Bajwa wants the company to show progress in key parts of its strategy including cloud and cognitive technologies by signing on new customers by the end of this year. Bajwa, who took over as head of the United States-headquartered technology firm earlier this month, is basing his strategy for growth on three pillars cloud, data and artificial intelligence. "The big change is that we want all our conversations to be cloud-first - from delivery to'solutioning' - and I have set goals in terms of the amount of revenue, customers and consumption of cloud," he said. Although he declined to specify the exact goals, he said the focus will be on attracting new customers. "We want customers who are new to IBM's services. This is not about landing big cloud deals. Cloud does not always work like that. We want to land small deals and then expand them. In all our existing deals, there is already some discussion on clo ud," Bajwa said.

Japan, which has a consistent trade surplus with the U.S., is putting the finishing touches on a package that it claims will create 700,000 jobs in the U.S. and help create a $450-billion market, Reuters reported, citing government sources familiar with the plans. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Trump are expected to meet on Feb. 10. Major Japanese newspapers cited a draft of the proposal that calls for cooperation on building high-speed trains in the U.S. northeast, Texas and California. The two sides would also jointly develop artificial intelligence, robotics, space and Internet technology. The Japanese may use money from its foreign exchange reserves to fund the package, Reuters reported.

In the past half a decade or so, powered by the increasing penetration of internet and smartphones, technology companies are dramatically disrupting industry after industry. Customers have started expecting the same quality and speed from all service providers, including insurance. Advent of on-demand marketplaces: On-demand technology platforms are vigorously building service infrastructure, optimizing operations, logistics and technology; and customers want similar levels of technology-led service experience from other services as well. Rise of the millennials: Internet being a given to the millennials, research studies have proven that these high-income individuals strongly prefer platforms that allow them to interact at their own pace. But digital platforms of most insurers today are designed to cater to conventional consumers, and are still reliant on toll-free call centres to provide sales and customer service.

Within a decade, our living spaces will be enhanced by a host of new devices and technologies, performing a range of household functions and redefining what it means to feel at home. The promise of devices that not only meet our household needs but anticipate them as well has been around for decades. To date, that promise remains largely unfulfilled. Advances such as the Nest thermostat by Alphabet (parent company to Google) and Amazon's Alexa personal assistant are notable, but the home-technology market as a whole remains fragmented, and the potential for a truly smart home is still unrealized. A tipping point may be at hand.

Russia is carrying out a sustained campaign of cyber attacks targeting democracy and critical infrastructure in the West, UK Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has warned. Moscow was "weaponising misinformation" in a bid to expand its influence and destabilise Western governments and weaken Nato, he said. Vladimir Putin had chosen to become a "strategic competitor" of the West. Sir Michael said it was vital alliance members strengthened cyber defences. His speech, at the University of St Andrews, comes as Theresa May is to use an informal summit in Malta to press EU Nato members to boost defence spending.

French academics have developed an autonomous vehicle system able to mimic a human driver and a Wi-Fi network to share data between vehicles. See Also: Will Nevada be the next state to legalize self-driving cars? The system is designed with 2030 in mind, when researchers expect Wi-Fi sensors to be built into highways and 360-degree cameras and Radar to track cars far away easily. Autonomous vehicles using the EPFL system should be able to give way to other cars and know when a car is going to switch lanes or leave the highway before it happens. This self-aware system may reduce the amount of accidents on the road, according to EPFL.

We've talked before about the rapid advances being made in the area of speech recognition. It's only a matter of time before companies like Doppler Labs augment our hearing such that we're able to experience real-time language translation. You'll soon be able to call him on that but only if you feel with 100% certainty that the translation is accurate. Why wouldn't language translation be accurate you ask? The simple answer here is one word.

CalTech and university of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers have created a robot that mimics bat flight. Bat wings have intrigued scientists for centuries. And now, engineers have created "Bat Bot," a small aircraft that mimics the flight patterns of the small, rodent-like flyers. Bat Bot exposes the complicated mechanics of bat flight and simultaneously provides clues into how to make better aerial drones. Bat Bot is a remix on an ornithopter, a machine that uses flapping wings to take flight as opposed a propeller or a balloon.

Marking a major step forward for artificial intelligence (AI), Libratus, an AI developed by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), has resoundingly beaten four of the best heads-up no-limit Texas hold'em poker players in the world in a marathon, 20-day competition. After 20 days and a collective 120,000 hands played, Libratus closed out the competition Monday leading the pros by a collective $1,766,250 in chips. "I'm just impressed with the quality of poker Libratus plays," pro player Jason Les, a specialist in heads-up no-limit Texas hold'em like the other three players, said at a press conference yesterday morning. "They made algorithms that play this game better than us. We make a living trying to find vulnerabilities in strategies. That's what we do every day when we play heads-up no-limit. We tried everything we could and it was just too strong."

WASHINGTON/SANAA/DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – The U.S. military said Thursday it is investigating last weekend's raid by U.S. special operations forces in Yemen and that innocent civilians, including children, were apparently killed. U.S. Central Command said civilians may have been hit by gunfire from aircraft called in to assist U.S. troops, who engaged in a ferocious firefight with militants from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the group's Yemen affiliate. The military said the civilians may not have been visible to the U.S. forces because they were mixed in with combatants who were firing at U.S. troops "from all sides to include houses and other buildings." Nasser al-Awlaki told The Associated Press that among the children killed was his 8-year-old granddaughter Anwaar, an American citizen. Her father was Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric killed in a U.S. airstrike in Yemen in 2011.