Yuval Noah Harari was catapulted into the international literary spotlight in 2014 following the English translation of his book Sapiens. The book, which covers the history of humanity from the discovery of fire to modern robotics, became a non-fiction publishing phenomenon, feted by then-US President Barack Obama and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and went on to sell more than eight million copies worldwide. In his next book, Homo Deus, the Israeli historian and author explored how the growth of big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and biotechnology could radically alter and divide human society, perhaps ending the species altogether. The same themes crop up again in his latest work, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, which collects essays, talks and responses to his readers in a series of observations on everything from meditation to climate change. In an interview with the Talk to Al Jazeera programme, Harari discussed technology, immigration and politics with Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett in Tel Aviv. Editor's note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

The first video game to depict Germany's 1933-45 Nazi era uncensored, showing the swastika and image of Adolf Hitler, was revealed at a tradeshow this week. 'Through the Darkest of Times' was presented this week at Gamescom, Europe's biggest trade fair for interactive games and entertainment. The new title will allow players to enrol as members of the'Red Orchestra', a network of groups who fought the Nazis before and during World War II. The video game's use of the Swastika has sparked debate over whether it is an advance for artistic freedom or whether it poses a danger of radicalisation. A 1998 court ruling blocked video games from using Nazi symbols, with judges fearing at the time that children'will grow up with these symbols and insignia and grow accustomed to them'.

The eccentric view has come from Oxford University mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, State University of New York Maritime College mathematician Daniel An and University of Warsaw theoretical physicist Krzysztof Meissner. These leading thinkers are now calling for a modified version of the Big Bang to account for this multiverse theory. The theory is called conformal cyclic cosmology, or CCC, and states that universes develop, expand and die in sequence. The black holes in each one then leaves its mark on the following universe that follow. Recently published data has then argued that these are detectable in existing data from the CMB.

Doctors may soon have help in the fight against cancer thanks to the University of Central Florida's Computer Vision Research Center. Engineers at the center have taught a computer how to detect tiny specks of lung cancer in CT scans, which radiologists often have a difficult time identifying. The artificial intelligence system is about 95 percent accurate, compared to 65 percent when done by human eyes, the team said. "We used the brain as a model to create our system," said Rodney LaLonde, a doctoral candidate and captain of UCF's hockey team. "You know how connections between neurons in the brain strengthen during development and learn? We used that blueprint, if you will, to help our system understand how to look for patterns in the CT scans and teach itself how to find these tiny tumors."

Machine learning is widely predicted to make drug discovery and patient diagnosis quicker, cheaper and more effective in the future, and signs of this can already be seen. Nearly 70 years ago, artificial intelligence researchers at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College discussed building machines that could sense, reason and think like people -- a concept known as'general AI'. But their plans were destined to remain in the land of science fiction for quite some time. However, in the last decade the rapid growth in computer-processing power, the availability of large data sets and the development of advanced algorithms have driven major improvements in machine learning. AI researcher Ben Goertzel brought to light'narrow AI' in 2010.

KUBINKA (Sputnik) - Russia's fifth-generation Su-57 fighter jets will have enhanced artificial intellect capabilities, bringing it a step closer to the next-generation unmanned fighters, a source in aviation industry told Sputnik.

Earlier this month, the Intercept broke the news that Google was building a secret program called Dragonfly, a censored search engine the company was potentially hoping to bring to China. Unlike the Google search that's used in the rest of the world, this search engine would block websites that are banned by the Chinese government and would not answer certain questions that the Chinese government has blacklisted. To learn more about Dragonfly, I recently spoke with Ryan Gallagher, a U.K.-based investigative journalist who reports on digital security and state surveillance issues for the Intercept. In our conversation, part of this week's episode of Slate's technology podcast If Then, we discussed why Google wants so desperately to enter China, why many of its employees oppose the plan, and how even a co-founder of the company may have been kept in the dark as Dragonfly was developed. Gallagher detailed how Google CEO Sundar Pichai has had several highly secretive meetings with the Chinese government about bringing Google to China over the past year--and the timeline of Google's plans to deploy the project once Beijing gave the green light.

I started out by just wanting to make a very small drone. But I quickly realized that there was a limiting factor in just how small and light I could make any design: the motors. Even small motors are still discrete packages that have to be attached to all the other electronic and structural elements. So I began wondering if there was a way to merge these elements and save some mass. I drew inspiration from how some radio systems used antennas made from the copper traces on a printed circuit board (PCB).

Researchers at Imperial College London have recently devised a biometric cryptosystem approach for securing the wireless communications of wearable and implantable medical devices. Researchers at Imperial College London in the U.K. have developed an approach for securing wireless communications of wearable and implantable medical devices. Their biometric cryptosystem (BCS) framework uses an artificial neural network (ANN) and gait signal energy variations to analyze the way in which different people walk. The researchers used the ANN to extract features from body sensor networks, generating binary keys on demand, without requiring the user's intervention. The team tested the approach on a gait dataset, and found the binary keys generated had high entropy for all subjects.

It is no secret that football is one of the most popular sports in the world with a fan base that extends to millions. Some of the popular football clubs like Manchester United and Real Madrid have over 4 to 6 million fans worldwide. Off late, football clubs are stepping foot into the world of digitization and want to enrich their fans' experience by using artificial intelligence and machine learning. It has become imperative to provide a one stop destination for fans to access live matches and scores, live commentary, player information, real time updates on matches and editorials on their personal devices. Hence, football clubs are being seen to be increasingly forming partnerships with technology giants to do the same.