Cognitive computing is the ability to simulate human thought process in a computerized model. Thanks to cloud computing and Big Data, cognitive computing has become affordable and accessible to businesses. The availability of abundant compute and storage resources combined with the evolution of analytics is accelerating the adoption of cognitive computing. Cognitive computing systems depend on various aspects of artificial intelligence (AI) such as machine learning, reasoning, natural language processing, speech and vision, human-computer interaction, dialog and narrative generation, and more. The machine learning algorithms learn and acquire knowledge from the massive amount of data fed into to them.

As we kick off a new year, I wanted to take a quick look back to offer some thoughts on the top ten technology books from 2016. Kelly was a founding editor of Wired magazine, and in this book, he offers an optimistic view into what the future of technology holds. His ability to see and interpret the future, as well as connect the dots to the past makes for an especially enlightening read. Alec Ross is a former Senior Adviser for Innovation to the Secretary of State, a post that took him to 41 countries. He draws on that experience to predict which industries will emerge and grow more than others, offering genomics, cybersecurity, robotics, and blockchain (among others) as examples. Ross includes anecdotes and stories from government officials and entrepreneurs alike.

I am what you might call a seasoned veteran of the Consumer Electronics Show, now simply called CES. I started going to CES in 1976, and although I missed a few years, I have attended over 60 shows, if you count the summer events held in Chicago during the 1980s and 1990s. This year marks an important milestone for CES, as the show celebrates its 50th anniversary. A crowd of over 170,000 are expected to land in Las Vegas between January 5 and 8. CES has become the major go-to exhibition to learn about what's new in tech, and to spot upcoming trends. The exhibits are set up in two major venues: The Las Vegas Convention Center and the Sands Convention Center, with other exhibits in various hotels along the famous Las Vegas strip.

"War never changes," intones Ron Perlman at the outset of one of Bethesda's war-torn futuristic Fallout roleplaying games. To wit, CNN seems to think the hacking mini-game in Fallout 4, the one with the retro terminals and Matrix-y code green-on-black code curtains, is the best way to illustrate Russian cyber-nefariousness. The shot, laid diagonally behind a banner reading "Obama orders unprecedented punishment for Russia hacking," is one the green-screens you can ply in the game, twiddling a cursor around columns of ASCII characters to highlight rare recognizable words in hopes of picking the right one to gain access. Like so much of the political rhetoric about hacking lately, it's the gamified version of Hollywood's idea of what real hackers do. So it's an amusing "not much to see here" error, an uncredited stock image fail that could just as well have been a still of Matthew Broderick clacking away on an IMSAI 8080.

Lincoln Clay, the lead character in Mafia III, is a protagonist rarely featured by the gaming industry. Lincoln Clay, the lead character in Mafia III, is a protagonist rarely featured by the gaming industry. On the surface all looks tranquil as you drive through the bustling city in your red Pontiac, tapping your foot to Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang." But as you take a sharp left down a winding back alley, an alarming sight gives you pause. Behind you, trucks painted with the Confederate flag begin to appear, the white men behind the wheel angry and visceral as they shout racial slurs.

The next WhatsApp message you open might lead to your whole life being stolen. Criminals are using the hugely popular chat app to break into people's phones, distributing viruses and harvesting personal information. The latest warnings have been distributed to India's centrals security agencies. 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.

There has been no shortage of promises recently about how deeply the application of machine-driven artificial intelligence is expected to change our society in the next decade. Microsoft announced its ambition to conquer cancer using natural language processing to analyze research papers in close to real time. Google--now a self-proclaimed AI-first company--will make computers sound just like humans by applying machine learning to a vast corpus of human voice samples. Facebook is using AI to analyze satellite footage to locate all human life and fulfill its promise to bring the internet to the world's entire population. And the list goes on.

The age of artificial intelligence (AI) is upon us. In the past few years, vast improvements have been made in how well computers can recognise objects in images and understand human voices. Progress in these areas has been made due to increased computing power and the availability of large stores of data, which, when combined, have made AI systems dramatically more effective. These same forces are also being used in marketing. AI, or'cognitive', marketing systems use industrial computing power, big data, and machine learning to improve marketing performance.

Take a short walk through Singapore's city center and you'll cross a helical bridge modeled on the structure of DNA, pass a science museum shaped like a lotus flower, and end up in a towering grove of artificial Supertrees that pulse with light and sound. It's no surprise, then, that this is the first city to host a fleet of autonomous taxis. Since last April, robo-taxis have been exploring the 6 kilometers of roads that make up Singapore's One-North technology business district, and people here have become used to hailing them through a ride-sharing app. Maybe that's why I'm the only person who seems curious when one of the vehicles--a slightly modified Renault Zoe electric car--pulls up outside of a Starbucks. Seated inside the car are an engineer, a safety driver, and Doug Parker, chief operating officer of nuTonomy, the MIT spinout that's behind the project.

Apple could soon update the iPhone with a special mode meant for the cinema. Tweets sent by regular Apple leaker Sonny Dickson claim that the first beta of iOS 10.3, the latest update to iPhones, will be sent out on 10 January. It will include a special theatre mode that will be triggered by clicking a popcorn-shaped icon in the phone's control centre. Mr Dickson didn't indicate what that icon would actually do. But several outlets have speculated that it could be linked to a patent that Apple already owns, intended for making the phone easier to check in the cinema.