Apple is once again looking to Asia to turbocharge its research and development process, this time to improve its artificial intelligence efforts. In an interview with Nikkei Asian Review, CEO Tim Cook said the future of the iPhone is AI, which will be supported by its new research and development center that will open by the end of the year in Yokohama, Japan. Cook seemed to suggest that AI in the iPhone would move beyond Siri and would actually help increase your battery life through resource management. It would also recommend music more skillfully, and perform other background tasks. As is typical with Apple, Cook stayed tight-lipped on specifics but said the Yokohama team will deal with "deep engineering" and be quite different from its planned R&D effort in China.

Driven by a declining population, a trend for developing robotic babies has emerged in Japan as a means of encouraging couples to become "parents". The approaches taken vary widely and are driven by different philosophical approaches that also beg a number of questions, not least whether these robo-tots will achieve the aim of their creators. To understand all of this it is worth exploring the reasons behind the need to promote population growth in Japan. The issue stems from the disproportionate number of older people. Predictions from the UN suggest that by 2050 there will be about double the number of people living in Japan in the 70-plus age range compared to those aged 15-30.

Anesthesiologists' jobs look safer than radiologists' jobs. In H. G. Wells's classic The War of the Worlds, the narrator pauses a moment to rue the fact that he didn't react sooner to the arrival of an "intelligence greater than man's"--in his case, Martians landing on earth. Comparing himself to a comfortable dodo in its nest, he imagined those ill-fated birds also dithering as hungry sailors invaded their island: "We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear." As intelligent technologies take over more and more of the decision-making territory once occupied by humans, are you taking any action? Are you sufficiently aware of the signs that you should?

Carnegie Mellon University professor Russ Salakhutdinov has been hired by Apple to lead a team focused on artificial intelligence, according to a tweet Salakhutdinov sent out this morning. He will continue to teach at Carnegie Mellon, but will also serve as "Director of AI Research" at Apple. In his tweet, Salakhutdinov says he is seeking additional research scientists with machine learning expertise to join his team. An included job posting asks that candidates have experience with Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Optimization, and/or Data Mining. Salakhutdinov specializes in statistical machine learning and has authored many papers on neural networks, deep kernel learning, reinforcement learning, and other related topics.

UK spying agencies illegally stored data about the country's citizens for more than a decade, according to a new judgement. The collection of data on everyone's communications was illegal between 1998 and 2015, according to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the watchdog for intelligence agencies. But spying agencies will be able to continue collecting data on citizens because of small tweaks to the law that allow them to get around the ruling. In recent months, computer specialists of the project MV-IT systems have built a Boeing 737-800 cockpit and reconstructed part of the cabin with 15 seats. The simulator will be officially opened on October 19, 2016 and able to'land' at over 20,000 airfields in different weather conditions and at all times and seasons Customers make a line to buy Sony PlayStation's virtual reality (PSVR) headset at an electronics retail shop in Tokyo People try Alibaba's new payment system, VR Pay, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China An employee checks exchanged Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Note 7 at company's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea In time for Wimbledon, Virgin Active is trialling'The Drone-ovic' – a drone that drops tennis balls from above to achieve that perfect serve at its Northwood club tennis courts An imitation of Facebook apparently set up for North Koreans has already been hacked and sent offline, just days after it was discovered.

That's just one takeaway from a new 48-page report White House AI report it released to policy makers this week, according to Jim Hendler, AI expert, researcher and coauthor of the new book, Social Machines: The Coming Collision of Artificial Intelligence, Social Networking and Humanity. Addressing such concerns, the report says that fears about super-intelligent and evil computers, shouldn't have much impact on current US policy toward AI. "And it gets that part right … we all need to cut past the hype and look at what's really on in AI," he said, "so we can pay attention to the real risks and opposed to the science fiction risks," he said. The things to worry about aren't the frightening HAL 9000 or Skynet scenarios, Hendler says, "but the very real economic, societal ethical and safety concerns AI poses for the foreseeable future." The report does a fair job of addressing such issues overall, he says, "and it is good as far as it goes," Hendler says.

On Monday, the European Schiaparelli lander is descending to the surface of Mars. The 1,272-pound vehicle is expected to touch down on Wednesday after gliding through the Red Planet's thin atmosphere at 13,000 mph, before being slowed by atmospheric drag and then a parachute, before thrusters finally bring it to a soft landing. Schiaparelli, named for the Italian astronomer who made the first crude maps of Mars in the 19th century, will photograph Mars and carry out scientific measurements on its surface for only a few days, until its battery runs dry. Its most critical mission is to test the technology that will allow the European Space Agency (ESA) to send a sophisticated rover to Mars in 2020, this one with the capability to drill and with instruments to study the chemistry of the planet's surface. So far, only the United States has successfully landed operational rovers on Mars: most recently Curiosity, a self-driving cart loaded up with lasers, cameras, and detectors that has been traversing the Red Planet in the name of science since 2012.

Tim Cook's latest stop for his Asia tour is in Japan. Apart from riding the bullet train to travel around the country, Apple's CEO did an interview to share some interesting things about the company's plans for its Japan-based R&D center. Speaking with Nikkei Asian Review, Cook revealed that Apple's R&D facility in Yokohama, which is close to Japan's capital city Tokyo and is expected to be completed this December, will serve as the core of the tech giant's "deep engineering." Steve Jobs' successor admitted that he is remaining mum about what this is all about, but he did say that Apple is capitalizing on AI in cooperation with Japanese companies. Cook shared that they plan to make the most out of AI by crafting technologies that would be very useful, such as increasing battery life of certain products or recommending songs to Apple Music users.

Driven by a declining population, a trend for developing robotic babies has emerged in Japan as a means of encouraging couples to become "parents." The approaches taken vary widely and are driven by different philosophical approaches that also beg a number of questions, not least whether these robo-tots will achieve the aim of their creators. To understand all of this it is worth exploring the reasons behind the need to promote population growth in Japan. The issue stems from the disproportionate number of older people. Predictions from the U.N. suggest that by 2050 there will be about double the number of people living in Japan in the 70-plus age range compared to those aged 15-30.

A lack of progress with secondary prevention, in terms of skin cancer screening and early detection, is a concern and a source of some disappointment among the dermatologist community.1,2 Early detection and treatment of melanoma is critical to maximise survival.3,4 Nevertheless, recently and for a second time the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) found insufficient evidence to recommend visual screening of adults for skin cancer following a systematic review.1,5 Where does this leave us? It may feel like some kind of impasse, but it has been suggested that perhaps we simply need to shift our focus from secondary to primary prevention.1