Before he took office in 2008, Barack Obama vowed to end America's grueling conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. During his second term, he pledged to take the country off what he called a permanent war footing. "Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue," he said in May 2013. "But this war, like all wars, must end. But Obama leaves a very different legacy as he prepares to hand his commander-in-chief responsibilities to Donald Trump. U.S. military forces have been at war for all eight years of Obama's tenure, the first two-term president with that distinction. He launched airstrikes or military raids in at least seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Yet the U.S. faces more threats in more places than at any time since the Cold War, according to U.S. intelligence. For the first time in decades, there is at least the potential of an armed clash with America's largest adversaries, Russia and China.

We know that automation is affecting the labor market, but forecasts differ on how swift and dramatic the future impact will be. A new report now suggests things may happen more slowly than some have predicted. Last month, it was reported that Foxconn plans to replace almost every human worker in some of its manufacturing plants with a robot. Perhaps more worrying for office workers was the news that a Japanese insurance firm was sacking over 30 staff because artificial intelligence could calculate payouts just as well as humans. No wonder that two-thirds of Americans believe that robots will soon take on the majority of work currently performed by people.

Now is the time of the year when every marketer should well reflect on the achievements of 2016 and holistically examine what the New Year is going to mean for marketing, branding, and business. With this article I proceed with a good tradition by following-up on my previous and related articles for 2016, 2015, and 2014. As we all know, paying attention to what's on the horizon does offer valuable insights. Knowing the below-listed 16 marketing trends which I consider as highly relevant for 2017, should help you to build, expand, and keep strong brands. Although this should have been ingrained in every marketer s DNA for years, however, with all the data, tech, and buzzwords flying around, one of the biggest marketing challenges of 2017 will be to stay calm, focused, and to be obsessed with the only one that matters: Your customer! How to identify her, to reach her, to engage her, to make her purchase, to have her stay loyal, to make her to recommend you, and to have her even re-purchase more of your products in the future? There is a certain risk that (marketing) managers – more than ever – get confused and fall into the trap of mixing up data-driven insights with a real customer-centric business philosophy. Therefore successful companies and brands don t worship the data gods for the sake of it; instead they have a comprehensive and deeply rooted digital transformation strategy in place which is flanked by a crystal clear marketing action plan. Enhanced and lived by every employee of the organization and not only by a chief digital officer who very often is floating around the company in search for a home base.

Some are calling this Nintendo's last chance. The veteran console manufacturer, creator of smash-hit games machines since the original Nintendo Entertainment System in 1983, suffered an ignoble commercial failure with its Wii U console. Announced last year, but revealed in full on Friday, the new Nintendo Switch machine has a lot to prove. Described as a hybrid system, it works as a traditional home console – plugging into your TV – but it can also be slid out of its dock and played on the go, via a built in screen. The concept is fascinating – merging the portable and home experiences into one product – but what about the practice?

For basic one-to-one voice or video calling solutions, WebRTC has proven to be a very powerful technology. Although WebRTC's core functionality is to provide secure, real-time p2p media streaming, leveraging native platform features and server-side components brings up new communication capabilities for web and native mobile applications, allowing for advanced multi-user use cases such as video broadcasting, conferencing, and media recording. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Alexey Goloshubin, CEO / CTO of Bit6, discussed how to utilize a flexible mobile-optimized session and signaling architecture to support p2p mesh, router (SFU) and mixer (MCU) strategies for connecting media streams. In addition, he looked at example APIs and integrations for new WebRTC use cases such as team collaboration, virtual classrooms, broadcasting, archiving and security. He has 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and software architect with a track record of launching, growing, and selling multiple successful businesses.

WebRTC services have already permeated corporate communications in the form of videoconferencing solutions. However, WebRTC has the potential of going beyond and catalyzing a new class of services providing more than calls with capabilities such as mass-scale real-time media broadcasting, enriched and augmented video, person-to-machine and machine-to-machine communications. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Luis Lopez, CEO of Kurento, introduced the technologies required for implementing these ideas and some early experiments performed in the Kurento open source software community in areas such as entertainment, video surveillance, interactive media broadcasting, gaming or advertising. He concluded with a discussion of their potential business applications beyond plain call models. Speaker Bio Dr. Luis Lopez is associate professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, where he works in the creation of advanced multimedia communication technologies.

Nissan will begin testing cars with self-driving abilities in London beginning next month, Reuters reports. The manufacturer will use a version of its LEAF electric car with autonomous technology on public roads in London. As PC Mag notes, the company had previously tested a self-driving prototype of the LEAF on public roads in Japan back in 2015, but the announcement marks Nissan's first tests in the European market. Alongside the testing expansion, Nissan also plans to expand its factory in England. The automotive market continues to be a popular area of investment for a variety of tech companies.

It is able to write calligraphy with a brush and is one of the star exhibits at the three-day China National Robotics Development Forum 2016 in Chongqing, a major platform for Chinese robot makers to showcase their competitiveness. Liang Jinlong, sales manager of the Beijing Up-tech Harmony Co, which designs and makes the machine, said the company mainly builds robots to be used for educational purposes in schools and universities. It also provides other services, such as customized robots. Liang is confident about the future of the company and the potential of the robotics industry in China due to the increasing interest from the public and the encouraging policy of the government. The company was set up in 2013 in response to the robot fever.

Data-focused crop-management startup FarmLogs has raised $22 million in a funding round led by Naspers Ventures, the VC arm of South African media giant Naspers, with participation from existing investors Drive Capital, Huron River Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, SV Angel, and Y Combinator president Sam Altman. Founded out of Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2011, Y Combinator alumnus FarmLogs uses data science and machine learning smarts to help farmers garner insights into what's happening in their fields in order to maximize their yield, reduce waste, and increase profitability. The platform monitors metrics such as crop health, rainfall, nitrogen levels, and more, while enabling users to record and share scouting notes with photos from specific locations in a field. Farmers can access this data through native mobile apps for Android and iOS. Today, FarmLogs claims its platform is used by more than a third of row crop farms in the U.S. Prior to now, FarmLogs had raised $15 million, and with its latest cash injection the company says it plans to expand its team and expedite product development.

We've all been warned about the upcoming machine takeover in the world of work. Studies have shown that 47 percent of jobs in the United States are expected to be replaced by smart machines and other forms of automated systems in the next decade or so. In Southeast Asia, about 137 million workers are bound to lose their jobs to automation in the next 20 years. In fact, it's already happening for some companies including Walmart, Barclays, and a life insurance firm in Japan -- not to mention Amazon Go, the retail store of the future. Automation is going to be a problem as far as employment is concerned.