A drone ambulance designed to airlift two people has taken autonomously to the air for the first time. The AirMule, which can take off and land vertically, is designed for conditions where landing a helicopter is unfeasible – such as on a battlefield. The drone, made by Israeli company Tactical Robotics, has seen recent setbacks in development but is designed to carry up to 450kg up to 31 miles. The single-engined, internal rotor drone took to the air from a temporary testing facility set up at the Megiddo airfield after gaining clearance from the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority for untethered flight. The company plans to demonstrate the AirMule's cargo-carrying capability within the year, with beyond-line-of-sight testing also scheduled.

The world's first passenger drone capable of autonomously carrying a person in the air for 23 minutes has been given clearance for testing in Nevada. Chinese firm Ehang, which unveiled the electric Ehang 184 passenger drone at CES in Las Vegas in January, has partnered with the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS) and the Governor's Office of Economic Development (Goed) to put the drone through testing and regulatory approval. Tom Wilczek, Goed's aerospace and defence specialist said: "The State of Nevada, through NIAS, will help guide Ehang through the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) regulatory process with the ultimate goal of achieving safe flight." The founder and chief executive of Ehang, Huazhi Hu, said the move would lay the foundation for the 184's commercialisation and kickstart the autonomous aerial transportation industry. Ehang hopes to begin testing later this year and will have to prove airworthiness to the FAA, with guidance from NIAS, before being able to operate in a wider capacity.

I'm hanging out with my 4-year-old daughter in the early evening, trying to keep her entertained and pull dinner together, when my phone buzzes. Normally I'd feel guilty for checking it immediately, and distracted even if I didn't. It's a timely suggestion from an app called Muse. Here's what it says: "Try playing'Simon Says' with L,. using directional words like: behind, around, between. 'Simon Says stand between the chairs.')" I can even call out the commands while chopping vegetables.

Nishogakusha University is getting a new professor, an android version of literary giant Natsume Soseki that will teach classes in commemoration of the opening of the 140-year-old institution next year. This year also marks the centennial of the death of the novelist who studied Chinese literature at the private university in Tokyo in 1881. In cooperation with Hiroshi Ishiguro, a robotics researcher at Osaka University who is famous for creating an android of himself, the university plans to have the Soseki robot recite the author's own works, as well as some Chinese poems, from next April. "It's often said that high school students today don't read books," said Kaori Echigoya, a spokeswoman for the university, which also runs junior and senior high schools. "We value Japanese language education. By recreating Soseki through the help of professor Ishiguro, we would like to nurture interest in reading and literature among students."

The helicopters were paired with RQ-7 Shadow drones. Predators and Reapers defined the last decade of drones at war. The future of drone war is likely different than its present. Large drones, flying for full days at at time, scouring the countryside for insurgents, is labor-intensive and requires safe skies to operate. In Iraq, the Army just tested a different approach to drones at war, using the Reaper's smaller cousin, the RQ-7 Shadow, paired with AH-64 Apache helicopters.

This CH-4 drone is carrying two satellite guided bombs on its inner pylons, and two Blue Arrow 7/9 anti-tank missiles on the outer pylons. The CH-4's electro-optical sensor turret is retracted in flight, under the fuselage, to reduce drag. Chinese drones such as the CH-3 and CH-4 have become a key part of the proliferation of the technology, joining China's air force as well as being sold to a wide range of foreign partners, from Myanmar to Saudi Arabia. They have even recently used in battlefields that range from Nigeria to Iraq. However some have argued that the significance of these systems is overblown, as unlike their satellite link equipped American counterparts, Chinese made armed drones could not truly conduct what is known as a "remote split operation."

MUNICH (Reuters) – BMW is overhauling its research and development activities to focus on self-driving cars, board member Klaus Froehlich told Reuters, a move which includes a revamp of its "i" sub-brand of carbon-fibre based electric vehicles. The company is updating its zero-emission vehicles after a lackluster response to its only fully battery-powered car, the i3, which recorded only 25,000 sales last year. By contrast, Tesla already has more than 370,000 orders for its Model 3. To help improve sales, BMW is increasing the battery range of its i3 city vehicle by 50 percent this year. Its next full-fledged new electric car model is not due until 2021, but the Bavarian auto maker is also planning to build a new version of its i3 electric car to be released by 2018, a source familiar with the matter said. "It is a sportier brother for the i3," said the source, who declined to be named.

People are still the lubricant that oils the wheels of finance, toiling at innumerable tasks--executing and settling trades, writing analysis, monitoring risk. Squeezed by low interest rates, shrinking trading revenue, and nimbler technology-based competitors, banks are racing to remake themselves as digital companies to cut costs and better serve clients. In other words, they're preparing for the day that machines made by men and women take over more of what used to be the sole province of humans: knowledge work. Consider venerable State Street, a 224-year-old custody bank that predates the steam locomotive and caters to institutional investors such as pensions and mutual funds. In February, State Street executives told analysts that after spending five years upgrading technology systems, they realized how much more could be done.

The history of artificial intelligence (AI) began in antiquity, with myths, stories and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen; as Pamela McCorduck writes, AI began with "an ancient wish to forge the gods."[1] The seeds of modern AI were planted by classical philosophers who attempted to describe the process of human thinking as the mechanical manipulation of symbols. This work culminated in the invention of the programmable digital computer in the 1940s, a machine based on the abstract essence of mathematical reasoning. This device and the ideas behind it inspired a handful of scientists to begin seriously discussing the possibility of building an electronic brain. The Turing test was proposed by British mathematician Alan Turing in his 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, which opens with the words: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" The term'Artificial Intelligence' was created at a conference held at Dartmouth College in 1956.[2] Allen Newell, J. C. Shaw, and Herbert A. Simon pioneered the newly created artificial intelligence field with the Logic Theory Machine (1956), and the General Problem Solver in 1957.[3] In 1958, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky started the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab with 50,000.[4] John McCarthy also created LISP in the summer of 1958, a programming language still important in artificial intelligence research.[5] In 1973, in response to the criticism of James Lighthill and ongoing pressure from congress, the U.S. and British Governments stopped funding undirected research into artificial intelligence. Seven years later, a visionary initiative by the Japanese Government inspired governments and industry to provide AI with billions of dollars, but by the late 80s the investors became disillusioned and withdrew funding again. McCorduck (2004) writes "artificial intelligence in one form or another is an idea that has pervaded Western intellectual history, a dream in urgent need of being realized," expressed in humanity's myths, legends, stories, speculation and clockwork automatons.[6] Mechanical men and artificial beings appear in Greek myths, such as the golden robots of Hephaestus and Pygmalion's Galatea.[7] In the Middle Ages, there were rumors of secret mystical or alchemical means of placing mind into matter, such as J?bir ibn Hayy?n's Takwin, Paracelsus' homunculus and Rabbi Judah Loew's Golem.[8] By the 19th century, ideas about artificial men and thinking machines were developed in fiction, as in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Karel?apek's

DIY website building service Wix.com has launched a new "artificial design intelligence" (ADI) service to automate the process of building websites. Founded out of Tel Aviv in 2006, Wix has so far served as an easy-to-use web development platform aimed at helping novices build HTML5 sites using drag-and-drop tools rather than code, while offering complementary services such as web hosting. Now with Wix ADI, the Tel Aviv-based company is looking to make creating websites even easier by using data garnered from its existing user base to feed into its new AI offering. So, websites created by algorithms is the general gist here. Wix ADI is touted as the "first-ever AI solution for website design and creation," and is being gradually introduced to users over the next few months.