Mitsubishi Electric, Zenrin and nine other automakers will start collecting high resolution 3D maps for self-driving cars to use, in preparation for autonomous car deployment in the country. The project is backed by the Cabinet Office's Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (quite a mouthful), which commissioned Dynamic Map Planning, a joint venture of the 11 companies, to build the 3D maps. Japan's government hopes that self-driving cars will be on the road before the start of the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2020, according to Nikkei. Highly detailed 3D maps provide a ton of data for self-driving cars, which can be analyzed by machine learning systems and fed into an entire fleet of vehicles. Once an entire city is mapped, the self-driving car could, in theory, know every single traffic light, walkway, and intersection while driving less than a mile.

Mad Street Den, an India-US based artificial intelligence startup plans to scale up its fashion retail vertical Vue.ai after recently raising Series A funding from Sequoia India, Exfinity Ventures & growX Ventures. "For the next 12-18 months, we plan to scale Vue.ai both in terms of product offerings and new markets" Ashwini Asokan, co-founder & CEO of Mad Street Den told ETtech "Now that we've gone global and established a product market fit, it's really about scaling that global presence". Vue.ai, Mad Street Den's first vertical, offers AI-based products to help retailers improve brand loyalty and stickiness, at a time when there are fighting with product differentiation and customers jumping around different sites based on discounts. It currently offers around 14-15 products spanning across the entire consumer lifecycle on a website or an app including visual recommendations, visual search and homepage personalizations among others. "We work with brands where we are pushing as much as 40% of GMV through our visual recommendations platform" said Ashokan.

Infosys is a global leader in consulting, information technology, outsourcing and next-generation services with clients in more than 50 countries. With 9.02 billion in Q2 FY16 revenues and more than 193,000 employees, the Indian multinational is helping enterprises redefine their present and future in a world where innovative solutions in mobility, sustainability, big data and cloud computing are required. Founded in 1981 by seven engineers with 250, Infosys is the second-largest Indian IT services company by 2016 revenues and was the fifth largest employer of H-1B visa professionals in the US in 2013. America is also home to its Global Head of Digital, Scott Sorokin, who has been a strategist and digital partner for senior-level executives at Fortune 100 companies for over 25 years. Formerly the the chief strategy officer at Publicis.Sapient/Razorfish and Rosetta, the New York-based Sorokin combines CXO-level business strategy, technology and marketing experience in a fast-changing global market to spur digital innovation at Infosys.

FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 25, 2015, file photo, people wait in front of an Apple store in Munich, before the worldwide launch of the iPhone 6s. Apple may not become a car-maker, but it still wants to develop its own self-driving technology. The iPhone-maker's automotive project, long an open secret in Silicon Valley, is shifting to focus on creating the technology for an autonomous vehicle that doesn't require a human driver.

Machine learning is a subfield of computer science, that grew out of the quest for artificial intelligence. It is so pervasive in today's world that you probably use it often in daily life, without even realising it. Machine learning has given us self-driving cars, effective web search, recommendations that you get when you visit web sites or social media sites, face detection in a digital photo album, stock trading etc. Machine learning enables computers to analyze vast amounts of data and automatically detect patterns and features, or make predictions regarding certain conditions. In a dynamic disease like cancer, gauging and diagnosing such a complex heterogeneity is the biggest challenge. After decades of cancer research, it has become increasingly clear that no two patients' cancers are exactly the same, and even within one person's tumor there is a wild diversity of cells. Accurate and quicker diagnosis is very crucial in rapidly progressing cancers.

IBM has unveiled a series of new servers, that have been designed to help propel cognitive workloads and drive greater data center efficiency. Featuring a new chip, the three Linux-based servers incorporate innovations from the OpenPOWER community and are a part of the Power Systems LC lineup, that IBM claims, delivers higher levels of performance and greater computing efficiency than the x86-based server. The servers clam to have been co-developed with global technology companies and the new Power Systems are uniquely designed to propel artificial intelligence, deep learning, high performance data analytics and other compute-heavy workloads to help businesses and cloud service providers save data center costs. According to Big Blue, the three new systems are an expansion of its Linux server portfolio comprised of a specialized line of servers co-developed with fellow members of the OpenPOWER Foundation. The new servers join the Power Systems LC lineup that IBM states, is designed to outperform x86-based servers on a variety of data-intensive workloads.

Inside – Elon Musk and neural lace, prosthetics, ethics of transhumanism, IBM Watson creates a trailer, EU might request mandatory drone registry, robots at Haneda Airport, the taste of CRISPR-modified crops and more! Elon Musk is Looking to Kickstart Transhuman Evolution With "Brain Hacking" Tech Elon Musk has recently hinted that he may be working on a "neural lace," a mesh of electronics that will allow AI and the brain to work together. This could help human brains keep up with future enhancements in AI. The story of Nicholas Huchet, founder of Bionicohand and amputee, who designed an affordable 3D printed prosthetic hand. From defeating death and aging to merging with machines to gene editing, transhumanist movement is going to challenge our current worldview and ask some serious ethical questions. Will gene editing allow rich to be better, healthier and smarter than everyone else?

We all become accustomed to the tone and pattern of human speech at an early age, and any deviations from what we have come to accept as "normal" are immediately recognizable. That's why it has been so difficult to develop text-to-speech (TTS) that sounds authentically human. Google's DeepMind AI research arm has turned its machine learning model on the problem, and the resulting "WaveNet" platform has produced some amazing (and slightly creepy) results. The system, known as WaveNet, is able to generate human speech by forming individual sound waves that are used in a human voice. Additionally, because it is designed to mimic human brain function, WaveNet is capable of learni... Artist Ai Weiwei poses next to images of Andy Warhol at the Museum of Modern Art in 1987.

Using airdrops to deliver relief to disaster zones may sound like a simple solution, but these missions have proved to be inaccurate, wasteful and expensive. With that in mind, ex-British Army veteran Nigel Gifford is developing a drone with edible wings that is capable of carrying 100-pounds of vacuum-packed food and medical supplies. Although in early stages, the'Pouncer' would be released from a plane or catapult and dropped within a 25 mile radius of the target. Nigel Gifford is developing a drone with edible wings that is capable of carrying 100-pounds of vacuum-packed food and medical supplies. Although in early stages, the'Pouncer' would be released from a plane or catapult and dropped within a 25 mile radius of the target Pouncer is the brain child of engineer and ex-British Army veteran Nigel Gifford.

The internet has transformed the way of obtaining information. Search engines play a crucial role in the process of collecting information. The present innovations and technological advancements have brought a new face to the internet. Jerry Yue has designed a new search engine Brain, which uses artificial intelligence. Jerry Yue has become famous for his earlier startup, Benlai.com.