The Power9 processor that IBM is working on in conjunction with hyperscale and HPC customers could be the most important chip that Big Blue has brought to market since the Power4 processor back in 2001. That was another world, back then, with the dot-com boom having gone bust and enterprises looking for a less expensive but beefy NUMA server on which to run big databases and transaction processing systems. The world that the Power9 processor will enter in 2017 is radically changed. A two-socket system has more compute, memory, and I/O capacity and bandwidth than those behemoths from a decade and a half ago delivered, and while NUMA systems are still important, distributed architectures now rule the datacenter for most workloads, and fat nodes comprised of a mix of processors and accelerators, rather than big CPU-only NUMA clusters, are becoming more common as companies try to create flexible and yet powerful compute complexes to address a wide variety of workloads. As the variety and complexity of Intel's own processor roadmap attests, the age of general purpose computing, where a few CPU SKUs covered the bases, is pretty much over.

Israeli online contract review platform LawGeex announced today 2.5 million in funding from Lool Ventures and LionBird and angel investors Eilon Tirosh and Rami Lipman. The startup has also launched its online contract review solution free of charge for consumers. LawGeex allows consumers to upload any type of contract to its platform and receive, within 24 hours, an in-depth report of what's good, bad and even missing from their contract. Currently reviewing over 20 types of contracts, the free solution begins with employment agreements, with more contract types to be offered for free in the near future. LawGeex cofounder and CEO Noory Bechor said, "The driving force behind LawGeex is the belief that no one should sign a contract that they don't fully understand. An astounding 33% of Americans need a lawyer every year but do not hire one, either because they can't afford to or did not know where to turn. This ultimately leads to one-sided negotiations and unfair results. LawGeex has already earned the trust of thousands of users while ensuring quality and transparency, leveling the playing field when it comes to contract negotiations. Our machine learning platform has already reviewed over tens of thousands of contracts, many of which are employment contracts from some of the world's largest tech companies such as Apple, Google, and Facebook. We make sure all employees get a fair deal."

Have you ever seen something so human-like, that it left an unsettled feeling in your stomach? You know that it's not a real human, but it looks and acts like one? Well, if you haven't, you are about to. The University of Science and Technology of China just created a humanoid robot so incredibly realistic, that it walks on the thin line that exists between familiarity and creepiness in the Uncanny Valley. Her name is Jia Jia, and she's got a wide array of features.

Japan looks to extend intellectual property protection to creative works produced by artificial intelligence, aiming to match other countries in coping with changing notions of authorship and use in the digital age. But the law covers only productions "in which thoughts or sentiments are expressed in a creative way" -- a designation that does not apply to works produced via artificial intelligence with little human input or creative intent. Legislative changes are seen as necessary to address advancements in AI. Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will make recommendations as part of a broader policy plan to be released in May. A subcommittee report due out Monday will give some details on the process.

China and Russia said Monday that the South China Sea dispute should not be internationalized and called for its settlement based on negotiation and consultation, Beijing's official Xinhua News reported. The comments come at time when the United States has beefed up its military presence in the contested region in a bid to help the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries tackle China's assertiveness. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov made the comments during a meeting on Monday. Wang insisted that China was protecting its rights and interests in South China Sea, and was free to choose how to resolve tensions in the area, Xinhua reported. The world's second largest economy's refusal of the Philippines' proposed international arbitration case over the matter was meant to uphold the dignity and authority of the law, Wang said, adding that China and Russia should be cautious against abuses of mandatory arbitration. Meanwhile, Hugo Swire, the British minister of state responsible for East Asia, said earlier in the day that a ruling -- expected in May or early June -- in the Philippines' international arbitration case against China's South China Sea claims must be binding.

The "NariTra" multilingual translation app employs noise-canceling techniques and recognizes a wide range of speech. Offered by the airport at no cost, the app is designed to work hands-free -- and therefore suitable for foreign visitors who have just arrived and who have their hands full with luggage. The tests will see the app deployed on a shuttle bus running between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2, translating Japanese into English, Chinese and Korean, and vice versa. The airport operator plans to roll out the app by the time the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games take place.

InnoTREE, a Chinese Internet-based equity financing and investment service provider, said it has produced the world's first artificial intelligence (AI) robot for investment purposes, the China Business Times reported on Tuesday. Teng Fang, co-founder of InnoTREE, said an AI investment robot can process the equivalent of 40 hours of work by a senior analyst in one hour. "In terms of its cognitive abilities, the AI investment robot is capable of replacing an investment manager with three to four years of work experience." The AI investment robot can track and analyze all aspects of dynamic business, and record companies' growth process on a daily basis, which should be done by at least ten thousand analysts, the report said. In addition, the AI investment robot can analyze and model statistics data obtained from the comprehensive evaluation of projects, and list companies with the most potential through model operation, it was added.

Visitors to Australia's federal parliament are often surprised by the robust verbal confrontation between the government and the opposition – technically known as questions without notice, more commonly as question time. A theatrical highpoint of every sitting day, question time is part intellectual cage fight, part kindergarten spat – and all psychological warfare. Political journalists watch the hour-long question time as drought-stricken farmers view the clouds. They look for signs, they read the climate. But what if you were interested in facts?

Niall Dunne is the Chief Sustainability Officer for BT, working with BT's Chief Executive, Chairman and executive management team to bring the company's purpose, to use the power of communications to make a better world, to life. Before joining BT in 2011, Niall was Managing Director in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Saatchi & Saatchi. Prior to that, Dunne was an executive at Accenture, where he helped establish the company's climate change and sustainability practice. Dunne has written and spoken about the power of communications to tackle major social, environmental and economic problems. Niall was vice chair of the WEF's Global Agenda Council on Sustainable Consumption 2012-14 and joined the WEF Global Agenda Council on Climate Change in 2014.

Chat applications are becoming a mainstream trend and our preferred way of interacting with colleagues, friends and family. From the early days of SMS to the favorite snaps of our children, real-time online conversations are everywhere and here to stay. The acquisition of WhatAapp by Facebook in 2014 for a hefty 22 Billion price tag made it clear and promising as TechCrunch noticed it one year later. But although TechCrunch saw messaging apps as the future of mobile portal, they remained more or less next to the Internet, without a direct impact, except their increasing audience. The recent surge of interest in Bots and AI is changing the game and we'll be witnessing the second major fragmentation of the Internet.