'Insider Threat' is a formidable risk to business because it threatens both customer and employee trust. Accidental or malicious misuse of a firm's most sensitive and valuable data can result in customer identity theft, financial fraud, intellectual property theft, or damage to infrastructure. Because insiders have privileged access to data in order to do their jobs, it's usually quite difficult for security professionals to detect suspicious activity; a process even more challenging to automate (and deploy at scale across the large organisations that most need it) as – so I will suggest – computers fundamentally lack semantic understanding of the meaning of the'bits' they so adroitly process. Conversely, in this talk I will outline a new approach to'Insider Threat' detection that draws inspiration from the Traffic Analysis' of encrypted Axis signal traffic' undertaken at Bletchley Park in WW2. A novel approach that (i) conceives companies as complex autonomous autopoietic entities and (ii) deploys state of art computational analysis of the communication flows that so define the company to flag potentially aberrant employee behaviour; intelligence that can be leveraged to help detect HR problematics before they arise.

Kamikaze drones fired from bazooka-like launchers are helping the US military hunt down and destroy lethal enemy drones with deadly precision. The interceptor craft crash into drones to take them down mid-flight and may even carry an explosive charge to bolster their destructive power. They form part of a new weapon system presented at the Pentagon earlier this month that deals specifically with the threat of attacks using shop-bought drones. The system, which can be mounted to an off-road vehicle, also features advanced radar technology and a computer-powered machine-gun. Kamikaze drones fired from bazooka-like launchers could help the US military hunt down and destroy enemy drones.

Silicon Valley has a long and secretive history of building hardware and software for the military and law enforcement. In contrast, a recent wave of employee protests against some of those government contracts has been short, fast, and surprisingly public--tearing through corporate campuses, mailing lists, and message boards inside some of the world's most powerful companies. The revolt is part of a growing political awakening among some tech employees about the uses of the products they build. What began as concern inside Google about a Pentagon contract to tap the company's artificial-intelligence smarts was catalyzed by outrage over Trump administration immigration policies. Now, it seems to be spreading quickly.

French startup Doctrine is raising a $11.6 million funding round (€10 million) from existing investors Otium Venture and Xavier Niel. Doctrine is building a search engine for court decisions and other legal texts. This is a key tool if you're a lawyer or you're working in the legal industry in general. There are now a thousand companies using the service. It currently costs around €129 per user per month.

Wanxiang Group and Thingswise, supported by Dell Technologies, Xilinx, China Unicom, and China Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT) are pushing the limits of factory automation improvements starting with a new testbed sponsored by the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) and powered by The Linux Foundation's EdgeX Foundry open edge computing framework. Earlier this month, the IIC announced the Optimizing Manufacturing Processes by Artificial Intelligence (OMPAI) testbed, exploring the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and industrial internet technologies, deployed from the edge to the cloud. Clearly, given the ambitious vision to make machines smarter to build better and more beautiful cars, it takes an ecosystem to turn what used to be heavily human tasks and into machine driven routines, and the IIC, arguably the largest and most active global organization supporting the advancement of the Industrial Internet, brought the talent together initially. The OMPAI testbed is led by IIC members Wanxiang Group and Thingswise, two technology innovation driven companies in the world's largest automotive market, China. The automotive industry in China has been the largest in the world measured by automobile unit production since 2008, and since 2009, annual production of automobiles in China exceeds that of the European Union and that of the United States and Japan combined.

"Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all" – so said John F. Kennedy in 1963. With recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI), some will question whether this statement still holds true. While computers have been used to assist with creative processes for some time, the creative input has largely been human. However, recent advances in machine learning software have changed all this. Using machine learning, computers now have the ability to'learn' without being explicitly programmed with any task-specific rules. As a result, AI is already writing new articles, poems and books, creating paintings and artistic works, producing video games, and composing music.

A team of researchers hope lab-grown brains from 550,000-year-old Neanderthals will be able to pilot the movements of a crab-like robot. The unbelievable experiment is using Neanderthal DNA to grow pea-sized brains masses, which are hooked-up to robots to test the capabilities of the electrical signals detected within the tissue. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine are simultaneously growing brain tissue from human DNA to plug into the same crab-like machines. They hope the difference in robot movements achieved by the lab-grown brains of modern man and Neanderthals, who diverged from human beings around 550,000 to 765,000 years ago, will offer vital clues about the minds of our early ancestors. The lab-grown brains cannot achieve conscious thoughts or feelings – but can mimic the basic structure of a developed brain, and reveal key differences in how the nerve cells function.

In the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, an ambulance speeds through traffic on a wave of green lights, helped along by an artificial intelligence (AI) system and big data. The system, which involves sending information to a centralized computer linked to the city's transport networks, is part of a trial by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The Chinese tech giant is hoping to use its cloud and data systems to tackle issues hobbling China's healthcare system like snarled city traffic, long patient queues and a lack of doctors. Alibaba's push into healthcare reflects a wider trend in China, where technology firms are racing to shake up a creaking state-run health sector and take a slice of spending that McKinsey & Co estimates will hit $1 trillion by 2020. Tencent-backed WeDoctor, which offers online consultations and doctor appointments, raised $500 million in May at a valuation of $5.5 billion.

The UK faces huge opportunities but major competition with the likes of China and Canada investing mega-bucks to establish centres of excellence and gravity. The UK Government is putting AI and Data at the heart of its Industrial Strategy alongside the other Grand Challenges and the time to act is now. At the beginning of July, I start a new role at Innovate UK. I'll be the new Director for AI and the Data Economy. My first role was as the Technologist covering Information and Communication Technologies so I've come back home, via enabling technologies, high value manufacturing and strategy.

Posted By C. M. Rubin on Jun 11, 2018 "Through rapid genetic sequencing, scientists can identify many different strains of Borrelia burgdorferi as well as new tick-borne microbial infections, such as Borrelia miyamotoi, Borrelia mayonii, and the Heartland virus." Most likely, you or someone you know has been affected by Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne illness in the US with more than 300,000 cases diagnosed each year. In a timely new book, Conquering Lyme Disease (Columbia University Press), Columbia University Medical Center physicians Brian A. Fallon and Jennifer Sotsky reveal that despite the challenges to find a cure for this complex, debilitating disease, precision medicine and biotechnology are accelerating the discovery of new tools with which doctors will be able to diagnose it and treat patients. Could groundbreaking technologies that rapidly increase our understanding and open up new pathways mean a cure for Lyme disease one day soon? The Global Search for Education is pleased to welcome Dr. Brian Fallon to find out how tech is tackling the ticks.