Robin Li, head of China's web giant Baidu, unveils the firm's intelligent digital assistant, Duer. When Andrew Ng joined Google from Stanford University in 2011, he was among a trickle of artificial-intelligence (AI) experts in academia taking up roles in industry. Five years later, demand for expertise in AI is booming -- and a torrent of researchers is following Ng's lead. The laboratories of tech titans Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM and Baidu (China's web-services giant) are stuffed with ex-university scientists, drawn to private firms' superior computing resources and salaries. "Some people in academia blame me for starting part of this," says Ng, who in 2014 moved again to become chief scientist at Baidu, working at the company's research lab in California's Silicon Valley.

Alphabet's Google unit, Ford, the ride-sharing service Uber, and two other companies said on Tuesday they are forming a coalition to push for federal action to help speed self-driving cars to market. Sweden-based Volvo Cars, which is owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co, and Uber rival Lyft also are part of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets. The group said in a statement it will "work with lawmakers, regulators and the public to realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles." The coalition said David Strickland, the former top official of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the top U.S. auto safety agency that is writing new guidance on self-driving cars, will be the coalition's counsel and spokesman. "The best path for this innovation is to have one clear set of federal standards and the coalition will work with policymakers to find the right solutions that will facilitate the deployment of self-driving vehicles," Strickland said in the statement.

SEOUL--Humanity has fallen to artificial intelligence in checkers, chess, and, last month, Go, the complex ancient Chinese board game. But some of the world's biggest nerds are confident that machines will meet their Waterloo on the pixelated battlefields of the computer strategy game StarCraft. A key reason: Unlike machines, humans are good at lying. StarCraft, created in 1998, is one of the world's most popular computer game franchises. It pits three races against one another: the humanlike Terrans, the slimy insectoid Zerg and a mystical race with psionic powers called the Protoss.

Startup Zero Zero Robotics just took the wraps off its eye in the sky, the Hover Camera. The company hasn't set a price but expects the lightweight drone (it weighs in at 240 grams) to cost under US 600. The flying camera is a relatively new type of gadget. It all started about a year ago, when startup Lily Camera came out of stealth with its 500 to 1000 camera drone and argued that it wasn't so much a drone as a simple-to-use flying camera. This March, drone-maker DJI introduced the Phantom 4, with autonomous flying and tracking features that essentially make it that company's first flying camera at 1400.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google unit, Ford Motor Co., the ride-sharing service Uber and two other companies said on Tuesday they are forming a coalition to push for federal action to help speed self-driving cars to market. Sweden-based Volvo Cars, which is owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., and Uber rival Lyft also are part of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets. The group said in a statement it will "work with lawmakers, regulators and the public to realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles." The coalition said David Strickland, the former top official of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the top U.S. auto safety agency that is writing new guidance on self-driving cars, will be the coalition's counsel and spokesman. "The best path for this innovation is to have one clear set of federal standards and the coalition will work with policymakers to find the right solutions that will facilitate the deployment of self-driving vehicles," Strickland said in the statement.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google unit GOOGL.O, Ford Motor Co F.N, the ride-sharing service Uber [UBER.UL] and two other companies said on Tuesday they are forming a coalition to push for federal action to help speed self-driving cars to market. Sweden-based Volvo Cars, which is owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co GEELY.UL, and Uber rival Lyft also are part of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets. The group said in a statement it will "work with lawmakers, regulators and the public to realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles." The coalition said David Strickland, the former top official of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the top U.S. auto safety agency that is writing new guidance on self-driving cars, will be the coalition's counsel and spokesman. "The best path for this innovation is to have one clear set of federal standards and the coalition will work with policymakers to find the right solutions that will facilitate the deployment of self-driving vehicles," Strickland said in the statement.

In his newly published scan of the literature, expert Thomas B. Sheridan concludes that the time is ripe for human factors researchers to contribute scientific insights that can tackle the many challenges of human-robot interaction. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Emeritus Sheridan, who for decades has studied humans and automation, looked at self-driving cars and highly automated transit systems; routine tasks such as the delivery of packages in Amazon warehouses; devices that handle tasks in hazardous or inaccessible environments, such as the Fukushima nuclear plant; and robots that engage in social interaction (Barbies). In each case, he noted significant human factors challenges, particularly concerning safety. No human driver, he claims, will stay alert to take over control of a Google car quickly enough should the automation fail. Nor does self-driving car technology consider the value of social interaction between drivers such as eye contact and hand signals.

Global law firm Baker & McKenzie has paired with Euromoney Thought Leadership to reveal what is driving the global financial services industry towards a rapid embrace of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and the implications both for the industry and financial markets as a whole. Ghosts in the machine: Artificial intelligence, risks and regulation in financial markets shows an industry rapidly seeing the potential benefits of AI, while being increasingly concerned about risk and the ability of regulators to keep pace. The survey asked 424 senior executives from financial institutions and fintech companies around the world as well as leading experts in the field for their view on how AI will affect the financial sector, what risks and benefits AI will bring to the sector, what the associated regulatory and legal challenges will be and many more questions. Surprisingly similar views emerged from across the globe, with only a few notable variations, such as AI investment seen as lagging slightly in Asia Pacific compared to other regions and Latin American participants seeing AI as a regulatory tool to combat money laundering first rather than market misconduct, the top choice elsewhere. The results provide some insights into the likely future of the financial sector.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Plaza here is a strip mall with a pet-accessories store, a Thai restaurant and a yogurt shop, an unlikely venue to display the high-tech future. But one Saturday morning in March, Google did just that. A small convoy of its driverless cars cruised into the fading asphalt parking lot to give test drives – test rides, actually – to American mayors visiting Austin's annual South by Southwest tech-and-culture festival. Mayor Richard J. Berry of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was impressed with how the cars dodged pedestrians and fallen tree limbs. Sam Liccardo, mayor of San Jose, California, right in Google's backyard, was impressed that he got to see the cars at all. "These things are crawling all over my city" in tests, "but I had to come to Austin to ride in one," said Liccardo. "This is going to change cities."

The University of Florida held a fully technology-based sport: The world's first brain-controlled drone race. Using their brainwaves, 16 pilots flew drones through an indoor course ten yards long. Both drone-racing and brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are not new, but this is the first combination of the two, and it's an efficient method of introducing BCIs to the mainstream eye. BCI is a system that translates brain signals into commands comprehensible to output devices. Most often, this technology is used to allow individuals who are paralyzed to have control of prosthetic limbs.