Machine learning, which is the basis for most commercial artificial-intelligence systems, is intrinsically probabilistic. An object-recognition algorithm asked to classify a particular image, for instance, might conclude that it has a 60 percent chance of depicting a dog, but a 30 percent chance of depicting a cat. At the Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems in December, MIT researchers will present a new way of doing machine learning that enables semantically related concepts to reinforce each other. So, for instance, an object-recognition algorithm would learn to weigh the co-occurrence of the classifications "dog" and "Chihuahua" more heavily than it would the co-occurrence of "dog" and "cat." In experiments, the researchers found that a machine-learning algorithm that used their training strategy did a better job of predicting the tags that human users applied to images on the Flickr website than it did when it used a conventional training strategy.

A battle between the U.S. government and China is now brewing in the market for semiconductors, the foundation of electronics. The U.S. alleges that China is rigging the semiconductor market in its favor by indulging in unfair trade practices. "This unprecedented state-driven interference can distort the market and undermine the innovation ecosystem," Penny Pritzker, U.S. secretary of commerce, said during a Wednesday event organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Chinese government is using its own resources to artificially reduce chip prices, which is hurting global competition, the U.S. alleges. Pritzker called on China to play fair and in accordance with "global trading rules," with healthy competition and free and fair trade, not through state investments aimed at distorting global markets.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wizeline, the leading provider of digital product and customer experience solutions powered by artificial intelligence, today announced the launch of Wizeline Artificial Intelligence Academy, or Wizeline AI Academy for short. The program, which will matriculate its first classes starting in December 2016, offers qualified applicants tuition-free coursework on artificial intelligence, machine learning and other advanced software engineering skills and technologies. The courses will be given at Wizeline's office campus in Guadalajara, Mexico. Interested candidates can apply by visiting AI Academy's website. With its main software engineering campus in Guadalajara, Wizeline has more than tripled in size in the past year.

The Marine Corps is in the hunt for a mega-drone that can take off and land vertically and deploy aboard ship -- all while carrying a serious amount of firepower. The service is asking a lot as it develops its MUX platform, short for Marine air-ground task force unmanned expeditionary capabilities, with plans to reach initial operational capability by 2026. The Corps' deputy commandant for aviation, Lt. Gen. Jon "Dog" Davis, said Wednesday at the Unmanned Systems Defense conference in Arlington, Virginia, that this future platform -- a Group 5, the largest class of military drone -- will be equipped to fight from sea as well as land. "I would say we're very aggressive with what we want that Group 5 to be," Davis said. "I want my airplane to go off a seabase and, frankly, I think the Group 5 [unmanned aircraft system] for the Marine Corps will have [AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile] on there, will have AIM-9X [Sidewinder missile], will have all the weapons that an F-35 will carry, maybe even the sensors the F-35 will carry."

Bloomberg's Hello World host Ashlee Vance visited Japanese technology giant Hitachi. The tech conglomerate has invested millions of dollars to invent all manner of robots meant to help Japan's aging citizens in the years ahead.

Some eagles could soon be spending much of their life in jail if the U.K. government gets its way. No, the powers-that-be aren't looking to target the majestic creature in some kind of bizarre police crackdown on bird-instigated crime. Instead, it's hoping to make use of their supreme hunting skills in its fight to keep drone-delivered contraband out of the nation's prisons. Discussing the issue during a debate in the British parliament this week, prisons minister Sam Gyimah described the threat posed by drones as "a game changer," adding that the government was looking for an effective solution for dealing with rogue unmanned flying machines around prisons and other sensitive locations. Gyimah said his team was "keeping a close eye on what's happening in Holland, where they're using eagles to stop drones." Police in the Netherlands recently completed extensive trials using highly trained eagles to snatch remotely controlled multi-rotor copters out of the sky and return them to their handler.

The Pentagon says a U.S. airstrike in Syria this month killed what the Defense Department describes as a senior Al Qaeda leader who once had ties to Usama bin Laden. Jeff Davis, identified the target as Haydar Kirkan. The spokesman says Kirkan oversaw the planning of attacks against Western targets outside of Syria, including in Turkey. Brett McGurk, the president's special envoy in the fight against the Islamic State terror group, called Haydar a "legacy Al Qaeda terrorist and external plotter," in a tweet. Davis said a U.S. drone carried out the airstrike Oct. 17 in the vicinity of Idlib, in western Syria.

They're not driven by the unknown, but by the present. Let's look at the last epoch-changing technological development: the internet. The tech utopians of the late 20th century saw the incoming digital revolution as a liberating force, one that would dismantle the old power structures that oppress us and help humanity build a new, more perfect society. It's painfully clear now that their hypothesis was laughably naive. Who, exactly, has the internet liberated? Silicon Valley tech tycoons and advertisers aside, it has decimated the music, film and publishing industries, slashed the earnings of musicians, writers, photographers, and just about every other professional whose product can be digitized, shrinking their industries, killing off job openings, and maiming job security.

Microsoft has released a new chat program meant to let colleagues talk to each other. The app will allow people to chat as well as to work together on documents at the same time, in a way similar to Google Docs. But its main competitor will be apps like Slack and Hipchat, which are both instant messaging services that have taken over many connected offices. Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo. A Toyota Motors employee demonstrates a smartphone app with the company's pocket plug-in hybrid (PHV) service on the cockpit of the latest Prius hybrid vehicle during Toyota's "connected strategy" press briefing in Tokyo An employee shows a Samsung Electronics' Gear S3 Classic during Korea Electronics Show 2016 in Seoul, South Korea Visitors experience Samsung Electronics' Gear VR during the Korea Electronics Grand Fair at an exhibition hall in Seoul, South Korea Amy Rimmer, Research Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, demonstrates the car manufacturer's Advanced Highway Assist in a Range Rover, which drives the vehicle, overtakes and can detect vehicles in the blind spot, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire Chris Burbridge, Autonomous Driving Software Engineer for Tata Motors European Technical Centre, demonstrates the car manufacturer's GLOSA V2X functionality, which is connected to the traffic lights and shares information with the driver, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire In its facilities, JAXA develop satellites and analyse their observation data, train astronauts for utilization in the Japanese Experiment Module'Kibo' of the International Space Station (ISS) and develop launch vehicles The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to the music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight.

"What is it like to be a bat?" the philosopher Thomas Nagel wondered in 1974. But something essential about the experience was off limits to his imagination. "I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task." Nagel's famous essay considered a sticky problem: what is the relationship between our body and our mind? The question of what it's like to be someone, or something, else, has continued to tantalise. Now, research into making telerobotics happen may offer a weird and cool possibility – that of beginning to understand, if only a little, the experience of entities that are not at all like us.