Historically insurers have long been perceived as the technology laggards of the banking, financial services and insurance trio. After all, customer contacts are typically annualized, come time to pay premiums, and even with investment-link insurance policies, the often suggested approach to the insured is to take a long-term view of their investment. Insurtech and the millennials are changing the industry though. According to Accenture, investment in insurance technology is climbing fast with insurtech investments in 2015 reaching US$2.6 billion (11.7% of total Fintech investments). Q1 2016 saw US$650 million go to insurtech with funding coming from venture capital, private equity companies and the investment arms of big insurers.

The greatest danger we face is underestimating the power of todays, let alone tomorrows, technology. As we enter an era of persistent online and offline surveillance it is becoming easier to see how one day police forces around the world could create a Minority Report like "Pre-crime" unit – or, how governments could use technology to "enforce" a status quo You know when you look at someone in the street, and, even though you know nothing about them, something about their look makes you cross the road to avoid them? Or when you look at police mug shots and subconsciously think "Yeah, they look like the criminal type"? Well now a pair of Chinese researchers have dived straight into the controversial area by trying to see if artificial intelligence (AI) can determine who's a criminal and who isn't – using nothing more than a photograph. And then, the more dangerous question – if it can could it go one step further and determine an innocent persons pre-disposition to criminality and how likely they are to, eventually, commit a crime?

PUNE: Silicon Valley-based artificial intelligence company Payjo is set to launch banking bots in India in collaboration with Yes Bank and RBL. The company has signed deals with the two banks and is in talks with other public and private sector banks to launch banking bots or robots by early next year, CEO Srinivas Njay said. "These will be the top six banks in India by transaction value, and the launch will help greatly to ease the adoption of digital banking and creating more financial literacy in India," Njay said. The company had earlier this year launched a recharge bot, which it said garnered 30,000 users within three months for services such as recharge and balance reminders. The bot, which can be accessed in multiple languages, will be available over social messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Skype.

At the start of December, Stephen Hawking issued a stark warning: Automation and AI are going to destroy middle-class jobs, risking massive political upheaval. "The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing," the famed physicist wrote, "and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes." It's an issue that Shahar Waiser knows about first-hand: In the coming years and decades, almost his entire workforce will become obsolete. The Russian-born entrepreneur is the CEO of Gett -- a taxi app used by thousands of cabbies in more than 100 cities around the world. And all of their jobs are at risk of being replaced by self-driving cars.

A hotel bed will no longer just be a place to enjoy a comfortable night's sleep, as future travelers will be able to choose their own dreams before dozing off - thanks to neuro-technology Amazing photographs of horses smiling and... Have YOU been on one of Britain's ¿ghost trains¿? The... It's illegal to be drunk in charge of a cow and 36% of... Revealing the bottom of your shoes, tipping and giving the... Next year's hot destinations are KAZAKHSTAN and INVERNESS:... Amazing photographs of horses smiling and... Have YOU been on one of Britain's ¿ghost trains¿? The... It's illegal to be drunk in charge of a cow and 36% of... Revealing the bottom of your shoes, tipping and giving the... Next year's hot destinations are KAZAKHSTAN and INVERNESS:... Hotels will self-assemble and morph from one design to another based on consumer's votes Autonomous robots can be designed online before arrival and can be programmed with special talents, skills, languages and information to help make the hotel stay exceptional. Dr Canton explained: 'Let's say I was on the Amalfi coast and there was only one hotel in this little town. An entrepreneur at a high-tech start up for just one month in the summer could create a pop-up hotel.

Tokyo, Japan – Ten months since the official release of Ginkan Inc.'s chat and dating app Festar, the app has seen high successful match rates with 53% of pairs from over 17,000 matches mutually liking each other and choosing to continue to talk after a 10 minute chat. Festar has ditched the dating app standard of picking based on appearances, and is proving just how important mutual interests and meaningful conversation are with thousands of users finding love and friendship through a live 10 minute chat. Festar is now available in 13 countries in English, Korean, and Japanese for both iOS and Android smartphones. How Festar Works: Unlike many dating apps that make users search for a partner, Festar starts by automatically connecting people for a 10 minute real time chat. Users are matched based on mutual interests and hobbies, instead of swiping and searching by looks or social status.

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AI (artificial intelligence) and IA (intelligence augmentation) have been discussed a lot in the industry lately, most recently for me I had the privilege to listen to Chris Stephenson's (APAC Head of Strategy and Planning at PHD Singapore) presentation on AI at mUmBRELLA360 in June. It is a hot topic for the media and advertising industry, but could it have positive implications on recruitment? I'm mainly referring to IA here as this is the computer system which for example Google search and Siri uses and which we have proven works. Pure AI, which is a computer system that reproduces human cognition, is yet to fully be proven. So, currently recruitment is very reactive - a need in the business is identified, e.g. a person leaves the business and a replacement is needed, or the business has grown and more resources are needed, or a project has been sold and now needs to be delivered, or new technology has emerged and we need someone with those skills to be competitive in the market, either way, we are mostly reactive in our recruitment.

An artificially intelligent computer system is making breast cancer treatment recommendations on a par with those of cancer doctors, a new study reports. The IBM computer system -- called Watson Oncology -- made treatment recommendations that jibed nine out of 10 times with those of a multidisciplinary board of doctors at a top cancer hospital in India, researchers say. In cases involving more complex cancers, however, the computer did not hit that 90 percent mark. Another version of Watson famously defeated two former winners on the game show "Jeopardy!" in 2011, winning a first-place prize of $1 million. It then spends another minute reviewing all existing medical evidence regarding their particular form of cancer, said study co-author Dr. S.P. Somashekhar, chairman of the Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Center in Bengaluru, India.

After spending a weekend in Tokyo learning about Artificial Intelligence, my entire perspective changed. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I was a sceptic when I walked into the plane for the overnight flight. I went determined to ask probing questions in support of my presupposition that machines can only do what man tells them and that they're void of emotion. Simply defined, AI, as it is commonly referred to, is machine intelligence. According to Russel and Novig, computer scientists known for their contributions to AI, "An ideal'intelligent' machine is a flexible rational agent that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximise its chance of success at some goal."