In 2010, an octopus named Paul picked the winning team in 12 out of 14 matches World Cup matches, including the final. But it's not 2010 anymore; we no longer need an octopus, regardless of how good he is at his job. In 2018, a group of researchers from Germany and Belgium felt it best to let computers do the heavy lifting. The group built a model using a number of factors, such as FIFA rankings, population, gross domestic product (GDP), the number of players who play together on a single club, average age of a club's players, and how many Champions League finals each has won. The team then paired that data with betting odds from the larger bookmakers and ran the simulation 100,000 times to try and pick a winner.

A team of scientists lead by prof. Stein Aerts (VIB-KU Leuven) is the first to map the gene expression of each individual brain cell during aging, though they started small: with the brain of a fruit fly. Their'cell atlas' provides unprecedented insights into the workings of the brain as it ages. Published today in the scientific journal Cell, the atlas is heralded as an important first step in the development of techniques that can help us gain a better understanding of human disease development. The brain of a fruit fly consists of some 100,000 different cells, and although that makes it much smaller than the human brain, it contains hundreds of different types of neurons and other cells forming a complex network, much like the human brain.

In a report on Thursday, Ofcom said the progress toward the legal separation of BT and Openreach has been "broadly satisfactory", but some steps were yet to be completed such as the transfer of Openreach employees to the new Openreach Ltd due to complexities with BT's pension scheme.

The European Commission has announced the names of 52 experts from across industry, business and civil society who it has appointed to a new High Level Group on AI which will feed its strategy and policymaking around artificial intelligence. In April the EU's executive body outlined its approach to AI technology, setting out measures intended to increase public and private investment; prepare for socio-economic changes; and ensure an appropriate ethical and legal framework. The High Level Group is a key part of the Commission's AI strategy as the experts will feed its policymaking here by making detailed recommendations on ethical, legal and societal issues. The EC put out a call for experts for this "broad multi-stakeholder forum" back in March. The group announced today is comprised of 30 men and 22 women, and includes industry representatives from AXA, Bayer, Bosch, BMW, Element AI, Google, IBM, Nokia Bell Labs, Orange, Santander, SAP, Sigfox, STMicroelectronics, Telenor and Zalando.

An artificial intelligence machine ran 100,000 simulations of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which is hosted in Russia, and concluded that the winner of the international sporting event will be Spain. If Spain is not to prevail, the machine sequentially picked Germany, Brazil, France, Belgium, or Argentina to win. The calculations, which were developed by a group of researchers in Germany and Belgium, used a number of factors to determine the winner. They included, but weren't limited to, FIFA rankings, population, gross domestic product (GDP), the number of players who play together on a single club, average age of a club's players, and how many Champions League finals each has won. The team, according to The Next Web, proceeded to pair that data with betting odds from the larger bookmakers and ran the simulation 100,000 times to try and pick the victorious team(s). However, the researchers told Motherboard that given "the myriad of possible constellations this exact tournament course is still extremely unlikely."

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., center, leaves after testifying at the European Union (EU) parliament in Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday, May 22, 2018. Zuckerberg offered European Union lawmakers his latest mea culpa for the social network's role in a privacy scandal that tarnished his company's reputation. In Open Society and Its Enemies, Sir Karl Popper positioned Plato as public enemy No. 1. Plato, in his work The Republic, proposed an ideal system of government that should cause any lover of liberty and progress to recoil. Popper warned that in Plato's utopia, "Everything possible has been done to eradicate from our life everywhere and in every way all that is private and individual…. Our very eyes and ears and hands seem to see, to hear, and to act, as if they belonged not to individuals but to the community."

By Mary Beth O'Leary With the push of a button, months of hard work were about to be put to the test. Sixteen teams of engineers convened in a cavernous exhibit hall in Nagoya, Japan, for the 2017 Amazon Robotics Challenge. The robotic systems they built were tasked with removing items from bins and placing them into boxes. For graduate student Maria Bauza, who served as task-planning lead for the MIT-Princeton Team, the moment was particularly nerve-wracking. "It was super stressful when the competition started," recalls Bauza.

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that would ban child sex dolls and robots because they'normalize sex between adults and minors.' The bill now moves to the Senate, where it must be approved before it is then offered up to the president for signing. 'These dolls can be programmed to simulate rape,' said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. 'The very thought makes me nauseous.' News of the bill's passage in the House was reported by McClatchy.

Airbus has unveiled the latest employees helping it put together the hugely popular A320 passenger plane. The European planemaker has unveiled a new production line for its best-selling A320 jet with robots Luise and Renate joining human workers as it turns to new automation to help it deal with an eight-year order backlog. Airbus hopes digital technology will enable higher production and trigger a significant shift in research and development spending towards high-tech manufacturing. Airbus is is ramping up production of the single-aisle A320 jet, which competes with Boeing's 737, from 50 to 60 planes per month. The two robots, whose names were chosen by employees, will in particular help to drill over 2,000 holes to join the two halves of the fuselage together, work normally done by humans.

Fortnite is quickly taking over the world as the most popular video game, but experts warn of an impending addiction crisis. Fortnite has hit 125 million players worldwide just a year after it was first released, with an estimated 40 million playing monthly. The unrivaled popularity of Fortnite among players has partly been fueled by its availability for free on smartphones as well as on traditional home video game consoles, making it popular among teenage gamers as well as seasoned players. Fortnite is one of the most popular video games in the world, attracting more than 40 million players worldwide to its battle royale-style tournaments. However, experts warn that the popularity of the game is turning into an obsession.