In recent weeks, it seems like every other day I have encountered another article or media reference to robots and to our anxiety pertaining to their growing presence and role in our life. Fears have ranged from "will they take away our jobs?" to "will they dominate and enslave us?" The latest piece I've read was "Can you trust your robot?" (an ominous and paranoia-tinged title) by a robotics professor in the US. In that article, he explained why human-robot interactions lack the instinctive aspects that human-human relations naturally have, because "we do not understand each other", and more specifically "we cannot tell each other's intentions." In a number of media references at the end of last year, 2015 was identified as the year when artificial intelligence (AI) became one of our prime concerns about the future.

US politicians are considering new legislation that would allow authorities to intercept or shut down drones that get too close to airports. The US Senate passed the measures, part of a general aviation bill, on Tuesday in response to rising concerns about drone safety. It follows a suspected collision between a drone and a British Airways plane near London's Heathrow Airport. Start-ups are already lining up to offer solutions to the problem. The FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) reauthorisation legislation, passed by the US Senate, could also pave the way for the commercial deployment of drones in national airspace - but comes with several safety caveats.

Nadine, a robot receptionist at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), is staring at the visitor in front of her. "I remember you," she says. "You were here last Saturday." The long-haired, uncannily human-looking robot pauses as her software runs through past interactions to figure out the most appropriate thing to say. Finally, she settles on: "We talked about your job." At the National University of Singapore campus, a driverless cart attempts to navigate along a crowded walkway.

In 2025, in accordance with Moore's Law, we'll see an acceleration in the rate of change as we move closer to a world of true abundance. Here are eight areas where we'll see extraordinary transformation in the next decade: In 2025, 1,000 should buy you a computer able to calculate at 10 16 cycles per second (10,000 trillion cycles per second), the equivalent processing speed of the human brain. The Internet of Everything describes the networked connections between devices, people, processes and data. By 2025, the IoE will exceed 100 billion connected devices, each with a dozen or more sensors collecting data. This will lead to a trillion-sensor economy driving a data revolution beyond our imagination. Cisco's recent report estimates the IoE will generate 19 trillion of newly created value. With a trillion sensors gathering data everywhere (autonomous cars, satellite systems, drones, wearables, cameras), you'll be able to know anything you want, anytime, anywhere, and query that data for answers and insights. SpaceX, Google (Project Loon), Qualcomm and Virgin (OneWeb) are planning to provide global connectivity to every human on Earth at speeds exceeding one megabit per second. We will grow from three to eight billion connected humans, adding five billion new consumers into the global economy. They represent tens of trillions of new dollars flowing into the global economy. And they are not coming online like we did 20 years ago with a 9600 modem on AOL. Existing healthcare institutions will be crushed as new business models with better and more efficient care emerge. Thousands of startups, as well as today's data giants (Google, Apple, Microsoft, SAP, IBM, etc.) will all enter this lucrative 3.8 trillion healthcare industry with new business models that dematerialize, demonetize and democratize today's bureaucratic and inefficient system. Biometric sensing (wearables) and AI will make each of us the CEOs of our own health. Large-scale genomic sequencing and machine learning will allow us to understand the root cause of cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative disease and what to do about it. Robotic surgeons can carry out an autonomous surgical procedure perfectly (every time) for pennies on the dollar. Each of us will be able to regrow a heart, liver, lung or kidney when we need it, instead of waiting for the donor to die. Billions of dollars invested by Facebook (Oculus), Google (Magic Leap), Microsoft (Hololens), Sony, Qualcomm, HTC and others will lead to a new generation of displays and user interfaces.

The consumer drones that opened the skies to the public may one day be giving a bird's eye view to Chinese authorities. Chinese drone maker DJI -- the world's largest maker of small drones -- said it was in talks with Chinese officials who want access to the data collected by its products, Bloomberg reports. That data could include flight records, GPS information and even video. Whether this applied to Chinese customers only, or customers in Europe and the U.S., has not been made fully clear. "Should DJI receive a valid legal request from a government agency," spokesperson Oliver Wang said in a statement to media, "we may provide user information to that agency, just as other companies do. That is the case in the U.S., China or anywhere in the world."

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN – Drones fired more weapons than conventional warplanes for the first time in Afghanistan last year and the ratio is rising, previously unreported U.S. Air Force data show, underlining how reliant the military has become on unmanned aircraft. The trend may give clues to the U.S. military's strategy as it considers withdrawing more troops from the country, while at the same time shoring up local forces who have struggled to stem a worsening Taliban insurgency. U.S. President Barack Obama said in 2013 that the Afghan drawdown after 2014 and progress against al-Qaida would "reduce the need for unmanned strikes," amid concerns from human rights groups and some foreign governments over civilian casualties. On one level, that has played out; the number of missiles and bombs dropped by drones in Afghanistan actually fell last year, largely because the U.S.-led NATO mission ceased combat operations at the end of 2014 and is now a fraction of the size. Yet as the force has shrunk, it has leaned on unmanned aircraft more than ever, the air force data reveal, with drone strikes accounting for at least 61 percent of weapons deployed in the first quarter of this year.

TAIPEI – A Taiwan artist has refused to see the big picture and instead captured the likeness of president-elect Tsai Ing-wen, to celebrate her inauguration next month, on a single grain of rice. Chen Forng-Shean, who has also sculpted the face of China's late Chairman Mao Zedong on rice, said the staple was a fitting medium for his work because it met the basic needs of ethnic Chinese. "Rice gives nourishment to the proverbial belly of the ethnic Chinese people. I used rice (as a medium) to encourage Taiwan's leader, Tsai Ing-wen, hoping that she can take care of the common people, so they don't need to endure hunger, and improve their financial situation," he said. He outlined the facial features and accompanying Chinese characters with a needle-point pen onto the surface before carving and then dabbing black paint into the grooves. It took three months and more than 10 tries to get the sculpture to Chen's satisfaction.

As cloud computing continues to disrupt traditional business models and big data continues to grow exponentially, techies and investors alike are looking for the top trends that will change how we do business in 2016 and beyond. Hybrid and public cloud services continue to rise in popularity, with investors claiming their stakes. Venture capital firms are investing most heavily in SaaS companies, proving that cloud solutions will be even more lucrative in the future. Some of the biggest names in tech are coming to TNW Conference in Amsterdam this May. While some have doubted Dropbox's ability to go public based on its 10 billion valuation, the fact that this leading SaaS company has raised 1.1 billion in six rounds of funding is pretty impressive.

Share the post "How artificial intelligence is changing our world – Intelligent Barbie dolls and other innovative uses – Part 2" Artificial intelligence is a field that has wide ranging applications across various industries as we saw in the first part of this series. Here are five other interesting uses of AI which will show you that with the right idea, there's literally no limit on what is possible with the technology. Have you ever wondered how an artificial neural network sees the world? DeepDream is made up of artificial neural networks (ANNs). This means that a computer is running stacked layers of artificial neurons which are used to process images.

In this post, I discuss a possible new approach to teaching Programming for Data Science. Programming for Data Science is focussed on the R vs. Python question. Everyone seems to have a view including the venerable Nature journal (Programming – Pick up Python). Here, I argue that we look beyond Python vs. R debate and look to teach R, Python and SQL together. To do this, we need to look at the big picture first (the problem we are solving in Data science) and then see how that problem is broken down and solved by different approaches.