A new remotely controlled war machine for the Iraqi Security Forces. Mosul wasn't supposed to fall again. The city in Northern Iraq saw intense fighting between American forces and Saddam Hussein's sons in 2003, and in 2008 saw major campaign by American troops against insurgent forces. When ISIS attacked Mosul in summer 2014, two divisions of the Iraqi Security Forces were supposed to hold the city, but the 30,000 defenders crumbled and fled from the onslaught of under 2,000 enemies. Mosul remains in ISIS' hands today.

For most consumers, push notifications are more an annoyance than an effective marketing or sales tool, with the typical push notification only converting about 4–8 percent of recipients. That means that, for every 100 push notifications a brand sends out, only about four to eight of them wind up being at all successful at enticing or engaging potential consumers. Consumers simply don't engage with the average push notification that pops up on their phone. But Vizury, an omnichannel marketing platform based out of Bangalore, India, is seeking to change all that by using machine learning and Big Data analytics to help make push notifications more effective, engaging and viewed, instead of just ignored by consumers. Vizury recently introduced its latest platform, Engage Commerce, designed to spike user retention and conversion rates by blending machine learning and analytics to "deliver deeply personalized one-to-one recommendations" that can be sent individually to target specific and unique users.

VCs are getting serious about space-related startups, and there are some truly exponential growth opportunities in the SpaceTech ecosystem. But the majority of money that went into SpaceTech last year was in just two deals -- a 1 billion fundraise for SpaceX and a 500 million raise for OneWeb. If you ignore those as outliers, SpaceTech funding in 2015 was only around 300 million. The segment of startups seeing the most VC attention is the earth observation (EO) segment. Companies building earth observation (EO) satellite constellations (basically, cameras put into orbit and photographing the Earth on a regular basis) pulled in more than half the SpaceTech funding from 2012 to 2015 and 72% in 2015.

Satellites are best known for helping smartphones map driving routes or televisions deliver programs. But now, data from some of the thousands of satellites orbiting Earth are helping track things like crop conditions on rural farms, illegal deforestation, and increasingly, poverty in the hard-to-reach places around the globe. As much as that data has the potential to provide invaluable information to humanitarian organizations, watchdog groups, and policymakers, there is too much of it to sift through in order to draw insights that could influence important decisions. A team of researchers from Stanford University, however, says it has developed an efficient way. By creating a deep-learning algorithm that can recognize signs of poverty in satellite images – such as condition of roads – the team sorted through a million images to accurately identify economic conditions in five African countries, reported the scientists in the journal Science on Thursday.

The Tesla Model S and Model X have been upgraded with larger batteries - and an even faster'ludicrous mode'. Elon Musk confirmed the arrival of new 100kWh battery packs, an improvement on the 90kWh batteries currently available. The new Model S P100D with Ludicrous mode will be the third fastest accelerating production car ever produced, with a 0-60 mph time of 2.5 seconds. Elon Musk confirmed the arrival of new 100kWh battery packs, an improvement on the 90kWh batteries currently available - and said the firm's ludicrous mode was now even quicker. The upgrade will enable the Model S P100D Ludicrous to accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in just 2.5 seconds, making it the world's third fastest production car, behind the LaFerrari and the Porsche 918 Spyder.

Scientists have released incredible pictures of sunken light aircraft carrier USS Independence that were taken by underwater robots exploring the wreck. The historic ship, which served in World War II and was used in the atomic tests at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, was intentionally sunk off California in 1951. The 622-foot-long Independence sits in 2,600 feet of water in the Greater Farallones National Maritime Sanctuary. Experts on the research vessel E/V Nautilus are using two Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to study the ship, which has been described as "amazingly intact" by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists. The robots' initial dive began on Monday and they have already sent back a number of eerie images from the wreck.

According to a MarketsandMarkets report published last year, the global healthcare analytics market is projected to grow 26.5% annually over the five-year period to be worth 18.7 billion by 2020. The industry was estimated to be worth 5.8 billion in 2015. North America has the largest market in the Big Data healthcare market due to the Big Data initiatives launched by the federal government to reduce healthcare expenses. China's recent Billion-Dollar Unicorn Club member iCarbonX (Private:CRBNX) also is making big waves in the industry. The company is leveraging biotechnology and artificial intelligence with the long-term vision of creating a digital avatar that will be able to guide the user toward healthy life options.

Originally published by Sramana Mitra on LinkedIn: Future Of Artificial Intelligence - Triumph Of Communism? I have written several pieces already on my deep concerns about the kind of society we're moving towards in the next 30-50 years as technology-induced changes sweep through society, rendering hundreds of millions of people unemployable. It seems to me that the end game in this thought experiment is the triumph of communism. A Universal Basic Income provides for the basic needs of human beings - food, shelter, clothing - and keeps society from imploding through crime and revolution. I am sure there will be interesting mechanisms to facilitate this process of vegetating - immersive computer games, ever-addictive social media, etc. Note, however, no one can afford anything beyond the basics, so don't think the entertainment industry will be thriving either.

The Iraqi army is testing its latest weapon in the fight against ISIS, a remote-controlled battle robot. The unmanned vehicle has a heavy machine gun turret for taking out targets picked out by the controller. Called Alrobot, the bullet-proof vehicle is being tested in the Iraqi desert as part of the army's efforts to retake the city of Mosul from ISIS. Iraq is preparing a remote controlled attack vehicle being which experts say could be used in the fight to retake the city of Mosul from Isis. Reports indicate the remote controlled vehicle, called'Alrobot', was designed by two brothers in Baghdad.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday that the company planned to make a product announcement later today. The company declined to offer details before the announcement. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday that the company planned to make a product announcement later today, causing shares in the firm to spike. Shares rose more than 1 percent after the post and were recently trading up 3.69, or 1.7 percent, to 226.62 a share. Internet users have specualted the announcement could be a larger capacity battery for its car, or a new'powerwall' system for homes.