Data volumes are soaring to previously unimaginable heights. More data has been created in the past two years than in the entire history of humanity. It is predicted that, by 2020, each person on the planet will account for the creation of an average of 1.7 megabytes of new data every second. Scalable AI solutions could help address humanity's biggest challenges. Drawing meaningful insight from such vast amounts data is beyond our capabilities as humans, but perhaps not those of machines.

Yesterday, Tesla released details regarding the latest updates to its Autopilot software, and in the wake of the Model S crash that took place while the autopilot feature was enabled (and which resulted in the death of Joshua Brown), and last month's non-fatal crash in China, Version 8 is set to put an increased premium on safety. The upgrades will go live in one to two weeks, and the most significant involves the role of radar within the Autopilot sensor system. Initially, radar was designed to supplement the primary camera and image processing system, and confirmation from the camera was necessary to avoid false positives from radar (and subsequent unnecessary braking events). With new upgrades to the signal-processing tech, however, radar can now be used as a primary control sensor capable of initiating braking events without confirmation from the cameras. On top of this, the upgraded software can access six times as many radar objects as the previous version without requiring any upgrades to hardware.

Reuters is the latest major news agency to embrace content automation. But the news organization has struck partnerships with Graphiq Inc. and Wibbitz Ltd., to automate the creation of simple graphics and video clips, respectively, to run alongside relevant, human-reported Reuters news content on the third party sites that pay for and run it. Graphiq Inc. based in Santa Barbara, Calif., has integrated its free-to-use visualizations platform with Reuters News Agency to make the simple graphs and visualizations it creates in thousands of Reuters articles wherever they run on 3rd party sites. According to Graphiq CEO Kevin O'Connor, Graphiq works with hundreds of publishers, including TechCrunch and now Reuters, to put dynamically generated infographics into articles. The company's systems ingest data from public and private sources to create instant infographics.

Tech columnist Jennifer Jolly takes a spin in a self-driving Ford Fusion and gets the scoop on how the technology works. Mercedes-Benz, whose engineers have been working on self-driving car technology, is eager to increase the size of its engineering team both in Silicon Valley and in Germany. SAN FRANCISCO -- So you say you want join the automotive revolution? Over the past few years, only elite roboticists have been positioned to heed the self-driving car's call to action. Armed with degrees from places such as Carnegie Mellon University and experience at institutions such as NASA, these tech whizzes have been highly sought after by technology and automotive companies looking to build the future.

Robots and other artificial intelligence will replace humans for many service industry jobs as some of the world's technology companies expand their improving research, according to a business consulting firm's new report. New York-based Forrester Research says six percent of jobs could be filled by "early-stage intelligent agents," or IAs, by 2021 as tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, and Apple continue to develop smarter, algorithm-based bots like Siri and Alexa. It also named industries like trucking and taxis, which could see revolutionary technology like self-driving cars replace humans. "By 2021, a disruptive tidal wave will begin," Brian Hopkins, vice president at Forrester, wrote in the report. "Solutions powered by AI/cognitive technology will displace jobs, with the biggest impact felt in transportation, logistics, customer service, and consumer services."

Sure, the autonomous era will wipe out a lot of jobs. Automakers, tech titans, and startups are racing to essentially put four million truckers, cabbies and other drivers out of work. But like all radical technological shifts, self-driving cars will provide opportunities, too--for those with the right skills. Working in the most compelling part of this field requires an understanding of deep learning, the branch of artificial intelligence that trains computers to do things like discern pedestrians from lamp posts. Universities can't crank out graduates fast enough.

SAN FRANCISCO – Over the last 30 years, consumers have reaped the benefits of dramatic technological advances. In many countries, most people now have in their pockets a personal computer more powerful than the mainframes of the 1980s. The Atari 800XL computer that I developed games on when I was in high school was powered by a microprocessor with 3,500 transistors; the computer running on my iPhone today has two billion transistors. Back then, a gigabyte of storage cost 100,000 and was the size of a refrigerator; today it's basically free and is measured in millimeters. Even with these massive gains, we can expect still faster progress as the entire planet – people and things – becomes connected.

Mercedes-Benz, whose engineers have been working on self-driving car technology, is eager to increase the size of its engineering team both in Silicon Valley and in Germany. SAN FRANCISCO - So you say you want join the automotive revolution? Over the past few years, only elite roboticists have been positioned to heed the self-driving car's call to action. Armed with degrees from places such as Carnegie Mellon University and experience at institutions such as NASA, these tech titans have been highly sought after by technology and automotive companies looking to build the future. But now massive open online course pioneer Udacity has a proposition: Give the Web-based education outfit 36 weeks and 2,400, and they'll turn graduates onto jobs at autonomous-car partner companies Mercedes-Benz, Didi Chuxing, Nvidia and Otto.

BRANFORD, Conn., Sept. 13, 2016 -- BioXcel, a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Connecticut, today announced that the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug Designation to BXCL101 for the treatment of Neurofibromatosis Type 2 (NF2), an orphan disease with significant unmet medical need. BXCL101 is the first and only systemic therapy being developed to eliminate existing lesions and prevent the formation of new lesions by targeting the molecular mechanism of NF2 pathophysiology. BXCL101 is a proprietary version of an approved drug, bortezomib, adapted for chronic use in NF2 patients with both a novel dosing regimen and delivery approach. NF2 is a rare disease associated with neurologic and ophthalmologic abnormalities caused by benign tumors of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. BXCL101 is the first drug candidate discovered using BioXcel's R&D Platform, to be granted orphan drug status by the FDA.

I am working on machine learning at Microsoft for Bing. Previously I got my PhD at the University of Melbourne and I was a research scientist at NII in Tokyo.