I recently spoke at the Deloitte Shared Services and Outsourcing Executive Forum at Deloitte University. The audience's interest level in automation strategies was high. For the most part, Deloitte doesn't outsource directly, but only provides consulting services to its clients about outsourcing and shared services strategies, so the event and this essay seem appropriate venues to discuss the impact of "cognitive automation" technologies on the outsourcing industry. I use quotation marks around the term "cognitive automation" because though I am told that that is the preferred term these days at Deloitte, I am still getting used to it. I like the term because it suggests a broad approach that goes beyond current automation-oriented technologies and methods.

Hacked data from more than 1.1m members of an'elite' dating site has been sold online, it has been claimed. The controversial site, BeautifulPeople.com, was hacked in November and details including sexual preferences, income, addresses and 15 million messages between users were stolen. Now it has been claimed by Forbes the data has been sold online to a mystery buyer. The controversial site, BeautifulPeople.com, was hacked in November and details including sexual preferences, income, addresses and 15 million messages between users were stolen. BeautifulPeople is the first community of its kind.

With Earth Day come and gone the initiative to save our planet is fresh in our minds. And that's not limited to global warming and putting a stop to pollution; poaching remains a big problem when it comes to preserving the world around us. Luckily researchers have been testing out how we can use scientists to help the fight against poaching. According to Science Daily, organizations such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Army Research Office have teamed up to look into how artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to stop poaching and illegal logging. Led by scientists at the University of South Carolina (USC), researchers have found ways to use game theory, or the mathematical theory of conflict and cooperation, to protect parks in a more proactive way.

Golfers in Japan will soon be able to get drinks, snacks, and other products delivered to them by drone while they're out on the course. Rakuten, a major Japanese shopping portal, will launch the drone delivery service in May at a course in Chiba, to the east of Tokyo. Golfers will be able to order from a menu of roughly 100 items through a dedicated Android app, and each drone delivery will be limited to 2kgs of goods. The service will be offered daily from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and suspended during bad weather. To operate the service, Rakuten has a dedicated drone depot where an operator will pack the goods and set the delivery location.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Already home to the world's biggest skyscraper, Dubai has another tall order to fill: By 2030, its leader wants 25 percent of all trips on its roads to be done by driverless vehicles. Monday's announcement by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum came without warning and with few details, as is sometimes the case with the many aspirations of the leadership of the United Arab Emirates. In this car-crazed city-state of over 1.5 million registered vehicles, it's not unusual to see Ferraris idling alongside Lamborghinis at traffic lights. And Dubai already is home to a driverless Metro rail system, which carried 178 million riders in 2015. Smart-car technology is being used in some of the world's luxury vehicles, and it is advancing rapidly enough for the plan to become a reality -- or a nightmare for the thousands of taxi drivers who now plying the streets among the sleek skyscrapers in the UAE's commercial capital.

Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced plans Monday to have 25 percent of all car trips in this city-state in the United Arab Emirates to be driverless by 2030. In a statement carried by the state-run WAM news agency, Sheikh Mohammed said it would cut down on costs and traffic crashes. He said the project would be a joint venture by Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority and the Dubai Future Foundation. Already, Dubai is home to a driverless Metro rail system. It also has a number of taxi companies, driven by a large foreign labor force.

A team of computer scientists may have developed a surprising way to curb wildlife poaching. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), a team of computer scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) have developed a model for "green security games" that use game theory to protect wildlife from poachers. Game theory uses mathematical equations "to predict the behavior of adversaries and plan optimal approaches for containment," explains NSF, which would allow park rangers to patrol parks and wildlife sanctuaries more effectively. "In most parks, ranger patrols are poorly planned, reactive rather than pro-active and habitual," Fei Fang, a Ph.D. candidate in the computer science department at USC and a researcher involved with the project, tells NSF. "We need to provide actual patrol routes that can be practically followed."

When it comes to new age tech segments -- machine learning, IoT, augmented/virtual reality, India still has very few startups. To boost innovation and encourage entrepreneurs working in these domains, a new startup fund called Ideaspring Capital worth 125 crores has been set up by a clutch of famed investors and businessmen, reports ET. The fund will focus on new-age tech companies working in areas such as Machine Learning and Deep Learning, Computer Vision and Image Processing, Big Data Analytics, Internet of things, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Internet Security,etc. We will invest in 4-5 firms annually. Initially, we will invest up to Rs 3 crore in the seed round that would last them for 12-18 months.

For people living in a world without sound, sign language can make sure their points of view are heard. But outside of the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, this gesture-based language can lose its meaning. Now a pair of entrepreneurial technology students in the US has designed a pair of gloves to break down the communication barriers, by translating hand gestures into speech. US inventors have designed a pair of gloves, called'SignAloud', which translate the gestures of sign language to spoken English. The gloves (pictured) use embedded sensors to monitor the position and movement of the user's hands, while a central computer analyses the data and converts gestures to speech Called'SignAloud', the gloves use embedded sensors to monitor the position and movement of the user's hands.

Parry Malm: I studied computer science in university, and worked coding CRM software starting in 1999, so the idea of the importance of customer data is native to me. When I led a global marketing team for a FTSE250 publisher, I sent out millions of emails, and I was always perplexed as to why one worked, and why one didn't. "Here's a secret about email marketers: most of them hate writing subject lines." Because it's surprisingly hard, and it's an imperfect process, and if your subject line sucks then all your effort on the rest of the email has been a waste of time. Previous to Phrasee, marketers would just stick their finger in the air.