AI is crawling into almost every part of our lives. We are trying to harness it to'augment our lives and capabilities' while running the risk that AI will supplant our capabilities and ruin our lives. A new example of the power of AI has been announced. AI powered neural networks, at Shanghai Jiao Tong University have identified criminals with an accuracy of 89.5 percent. Leaving aside the question of whether the technology is transferable to other regions and therefore facial formats, you have to wonder about the 10.5 percent of people who were identified inaccurately.

Over a month ago, the White House released a report exploring AI's promises and challenges. Today, climate change denier and Senator Ted Cruz, head of the Senate's Space, Science and Competitiveness subcommittee, held a public hearing to follow up on the subject. He and members of the Senate's greater Commerce, Science and Transportation committee petitioned four prominent experts in the field to give a status update on artificial intelligence. Their message was clear: AI has a lot of potential to boost American production, but unless we educate far more experts, US research will be overtaken by China, India and other nations that are increasingly investing in the field. The hearing's only pleasant surprise was its bipartisan support.

Well, 2016 has been a heck of a year – so we're going to see it out in the best way possible: with a candid discussion about the best, worst and most interesting moments from the world of video games. On 15 December, the Guardian games section is holding its annual review of the year event at our London headquarters. Joining games editor Keith Stuart on stage will be Tomb Raider writer Rhianna Pratchett, comedian and broadcaster Ellie Gibson (from hit Dave show, Dara O Briain's Go 8 Bit), and designer and academic Phoenix Perry, as well as Alice Bell from games site VideoGamer and Guardian games contributors Simon Parkin and Jordan Erica Webber. We'll be looking at the lows and highs of the year, from the majestic Uncharted 4 to the now available Final Fantasy XV; from the promise of virtual reality to the ... unfulfilled promise of virtual reality; from the biggest commercial releases to the strangest, most beautiful little indie gems. We'll also be asking: what do the games of 2016 tell us about what we can expect in 2017 and beyond?

For a long time, hiring in India (or for that matter anywhere in the world) meant candidates would have to be active on job portals and scout through the various jobs listed. It would then be up to the recruiter of a company to go through all the CVs and schedule interviews with potential candidates and the entire process took around four to five months. As companies run into increasingly competitive talent markets, recruiting costs and cycles are escalating. To overcome these challenges and help businesses meet their goals, recruiting teams need radically new capabilities and technologies, something Bengaluru-based startup Belong is helping companies to achieve. Basically, the premise is simple: for an employer and potential employee to connect with each other they must connect on something beyond skills and experience.

Publishing is no longer about writing just a book. Therefore publishing is not just dependent on itself but on other mediums as well. A best selling book makes it to a Netflix show or a movie and that in turn gives the book sales another fillip. So content in its traditional form - i.e as a book is not dying anytime. In fact, the need for good content is greater than ever as players like Netflix and HBO keep on searching for the next bestselling story to be made into a tv show or a movie.

Between 2005 and 2020, data volumes will grow by a factor of 300 - enough data to stack CDs from the earth to the moon 162 times. This has come to be known as the'Big Data' phenomenon. Unfortunately, traditional approaches to handling, storing and analyzing data aren't adequate at this scale: they're too costly, slow and physically cumbersome to keep up. Fortunately, in response a new breed of technology has emerged that is cheaper, faster and more scalable. Yet, in meeting these new needs they break many of the traditional security approaches on which enterprises depended.

Thanks to the relentless work of dedicated engineers, artificial intelligence, or AI, becomes smarter by the day. But while computers become better at replicating human tasks, reading comprehension, an area where machines have yet to catch up, is declining among young people, suggesting a chilling future in which AI may put people out of work. That is why Noriko Arai, a mathematician at the National Institute of Informatics, decided in November to change the direction of her project from teaching an AI to pass the entrance exam for Japan's most prestigious school -- the University of Tokyo, better known as Todai -- to focusing on improving the reading comprehension of future generations using AI technology. "AI engineers have always said that humans don't have to worry because only menial jobs will be taken over by machines. But what about the people who do such jobs?"

Could a robot one day feel a gentle breeze on its skin? We might be getting closer to yes. On top of protecting us from the elements and germs, our skin is a remarkable sensor. Through it we feel everything from the slightest breeze to a sharp slap, not to mention heat, moisture, texture and more. As researchers build sophisticated robots or prosthetics to replace missing limbs, they're trying to figure out how to replicate skin's abilities.

Recently pan-entertainment has become a strategy of many large game companies. The use of games and movies to cross promote each other is prevalent in many countries. Chinese gamers loved seeing the movie Kung Fu Panda 3 promoting the game by the same title, and singing sensation Jay Chou not only sang the theme song for the movie but the song also made it into the game. Publicly-traded Chinese games powerhouse NetEase, known in the West for a joint venture with Blizzard for World of Warcraft and more recently Overwatch operations in China, has launched a pan-entertainment content strategy that's paying off; the company's market share for mobile games is increasing. In addition, NetEase's mobile games revenue has surged in relation to PC games revenue, and currently stands at 66% of the company's games revenue (having surpassed PC online games revenue midyear 2015).

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