Two cucumber farmers in Japan have received an unusual boost to their business after their son adapted Google's powerful artificial intelligence software to carry out the arduous task of sorting vegetables. Makoto Koike returned to his parent's cucumber farm in 2015 after working as a computer systems designer in the automobile industry. While helping out on the farm, Koike realized that one of the most time-consuming processes could be overcome through automation. Taking inspiration from Google's powerful artificial intelligence computer program AlphaGo, Koike set about designing a sorting system using a 35 Raspberry Pi 3 computer and Google's open source deep-learning platform TensorFlow. "Each cucumber has different color, shape, quality and freshness," Koike said.

The voracious reader and self-proclaimed "learning nerd" is known to plow through at least one book every week, with a heavy emphasis on business, science and mathematics. And although the summer is (almost) over, his book menu offers plenty of brain fodder for book lovers to absorb in the fall and beyond. Some of Gates' favorite tomes range from the eclectic to the informative, including an 800-page science fiction novel and a 200-page nonfiction book on how moribund Japan can regain its economic mojo. Writing on his personal blog, gatesnotes, Gates said he hoped each selection would inspire readers to "go off the beaten path." "[These] books are simply ones that I loved, made me think in new ways and kept me up reading long past when I should have gone to sleep."

Among several new trends being pushed pumped out of the Defense Department's research offices under the guise of the Third Offset strategy -- an initiative that seeks to leverage manned-unmanned teaming to counteract adversarial capabilities -- is the concept of cognitive electronic warfare. Cognitive EW seeks to leverage artificial intelligence to adapt to rapidly changing electromagnetic surroundings in the field. The Air Force Research Lab has recently released a request for information in navigation warfare research assistance from the contracting community that includes electronic attack, electronic protection and electronic support techniques for cognitive EW applications, among other similar research areas to bolster operations in environments in which communications and navigation could be degraded or disrupted. Aircraft, upon deploying for a particular mission, have a library of profiles to counter an adversary's attempt to jam its radar. However, with the proliferation and increasing proficiency of certain adversaries in this space, such as Russia, there is a growing sense of inadequacy.

Israel is planning to bolster its high-tech arsenal by deploying fully autonomous military vehicles along the country's dangerous border with Gaza. "This is the future -- the border is a very dangerous place," an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official told FoxNews.com, citing the threat of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), snipers, anti-tank missiles and terrorist tunnels. "Sending unmanned vehicles to do these patrols means that troops lives' are not at risk." Working with Israeli defense specialist Elbit Systems, IDF has equipped Ford F-350 pickup trucks with specialized remote driving technology. The trucks, dubbed Border Protector Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), are also fitted with four driving cameras and a 360-degree observation camera to help operators identify threats.

Dubai: In keeping with the global decline the growth of assets under management (AuM), the Middle East also witnessed a sharp fall in the total AuM last year, according to a study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Globally, AuM stalled with marginal growth last year. The BCG report shows the global value of AuM rose just 1 per cent in 2015, to 71.4 trillion (Dh262 trillion) from 70.5 trillion in 2014, after growing 8 per cent that year, and at an average annualised rate of 5 per cent from 2008 through 2014. In contrast, the Middle East's AuM declined 10 per cent and net new flows of assets, revenue growth, and revenue margins all dipped lower in 2015. In absolute terms the region's AuM plummeted from 1.4 trillion in 2014 to 1.3 trillion in 2015.

New Delhi: While artificial intelligence is making waves globally, Cognitive Business Intelligence (BI) is the next stage of machine learning to design and analyse unstructured data, video, images and human language, say experts. According to them, we are generating data but is this data being analysed to create insights which could help in running businesses more effectively is the real concern for businesses. "This potential can be leveraged using Business Intelligence. Using BI, we can understand what really the data means," said Nikhilesh Tiwari, Co-Founder, Helical Insight, the world's first open source Business Intelligence (BI) framework. At the moment, less than 0.5 per cent of all data is ever analysed and used globally.

Few companies offer something so popular that their name becomes a verb. But that is one of the many achievements of Uber, a company founded in 2009 which is now the world's most valuable startup, worth around 70 billion. Its app can summon a car in moments in more than 425 cities around the world, to the fury of taxi drivers everywhere. But Uber's ambitions, and the expectations underpinning its valuation, extend much further: using self-driving vehicles, it wants to make ride-hailing so cheap and convenient that people forgo car ownership altogether. Not satisfied with shaking up the 100-billion-a-year taxi business, it has its eye on the far bigger market for personal transport, worth as much as 10 trillion a year globally.

People walk past a LG Electronics logo during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 25, 2016. SEOUL South Korea's LG Electronics Inc said on Sunday it will aggressively invest in robots, seeking to capitalize on advancing artificial intelligence that may eventually lead to sophisticated machines performing everyday human tasks. LG, in a statement, said its appliances division is preparing the firm's entry into the robotics industry with the aim to develop products that will work closely with home appliances products such as refrigerators, washers and air conditioning units. "We will prepare for the future by aggressively investing in smart home, robots and key components and strengthen the home appliances business's capabilities," said Jo Seung-jin, head of LG's appliances business, in the statement. Advances in fields such as artificial intelligence and wireless communications are allowing for more sophisticated machines that can talk to each other via the internet and perform more complex tasks.

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG The Chinese government said on Friday it was investigating two high-profile takeover proposals involving U.S. companies, the latest sign of its growing influence on whether deals are approved - even those appearing to have little impact in China.

"…radically optimized processes and marketplaces that leverage Watson, IBM Cloud, IBM Systems, Blockchain, deep domain expertise and ecosystems of partners and developers." Three years ago, Jeff Bezos announced that drones are eventually going to deliver Amazon orders. In the past year, he brought out Amazon's Alexa artificial intelligence service, which understands speech well enough that you can say, "Alexa, I really need a waffle cone maker," and she'll put one in your Amazon online shopping cart, even though nobody needs a waffle cone maker. Hey guyz, i wanted to know about ensembling, and are we allowed to that on this training set, because the title mentions only random forest as a predictive algorithm. Kawasaki is establishing artificial intelligence for motorbike that will enable future bikes to chat with their riders, and even enable them to control the cycles using their voice.