Our oceans are in trouble. Climate change, plastic waste and overfishing are all causing tremendous damage to underwater life around the world. Inspired by the BBC's Blue Planet II series, developer E-Line Media is making a video game that focuses on the scientists who are trying to understand our impact. It's called Beyond Blue and will put you in charge of a research team with stunning technology designed to unlock new insights about the sea. Your task is simply to gather information and learn what you can about these fast-changing, human-made threats to the sea.

What does the youngest chief executive in Big Pharma want? When Vas Narasimhan, 41, took the helm of drug giant Novartis in February, he'd already put the project in motion. Novartis scouts were dispatched to visit air traffic control towers and the Swiss electrical grid to see how other industries dealt with torrents of data. Working with McKinsey's QuantumBlack unit, they built a software system called Nerve that not only keeps track of every data point on all 550 clinical trials testing Novartis drugs, but also uses analytic software to predict potential hiccups in the execution of those studies. Soon Narasimhan will be able to walk into mission control at the company's Basel, Switzerland, headquarters and call up whatever information he needs in an instant. "When you look at history, it takes the medical establishment 50 to 75 years to actually change how we do clinical studies," Narasimhan says.

DISCOVERING and harnessing fire unlocked more nutrition from food, feeding the bigger brains and bodies that are the hallmarks of modern humans. Google's chief executive, Sundar Pichai, thinks his company's development of artificial intelligence trumps that. "AI is one of the most important things that humanity is working on," he told an event in California earlier this year. "It's more profound than, I don't know, electricity or fire." Hyperbolic analogies aside, Google's AI techniques are becoming more powerful and more important to its business.

Two legal challenges have been launched against police forces in south Wales and London over their use of automated facial recognition (AFR) technology on the grounds the surveillance is unregulated and violates privacy. The claims are backed by the human rights organisations Liberty and Big Brother Watch following complaints about biometric checks at the Notting Hill carnival, on Remembrance Sunday, at demonstrations and in high streets. Liberty is supporting Ed Bridges, a Cardiff resident, who has written to the chief constable of South Wales police alleging he was tracked at a peaceful anti-arms protest and while out shopping. Big Brother Watch is working with the Green party peer Jenny Jones who has written to the home secretary, Sajid Javid, and the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, urging them to halt deployment of the "dangerously authoritarian" technology. If the forces do not stop using AFR systems then legal action will follow in the high court, the letters said.

The Oversight and Government Reform IT Subcommittee has been on a mission to increase the presence of artificial intelligence in government. After a series of congressional hearings on the matter Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, is realizing how far behind we are from robots taking over the world or replacing our colleagues. In these hearings, the committee heard from members of government, industry, academia and nonprofits about the challenges and opportunities AI brings -- including ethics, funding, capabilities, security, consumer expectations and more. In a recent piece written by Hurd in Fortune, he emphasizes that government adopting AI doesn't mean it'll be run by AI; but rather, it'll be "run by people with help from algorithms dramatically improving government services for all Americans," he writes. Hurd also believes AI can make it easier and faster for citizens to interact with government, while increasing government response time and speed.

Lidar maker Luminar says its sensors generate the highest-resolution images currently available for autonomous vehicles. Luminar, a maker of laser lidar sensors that self-driving cars need to see their surroundings in 3-D, will supply the latest versions of its technology to Sweden's Volvo Cars, which is also investing in the Silicon Valley startup. Led by 23-year-old optics wunderkind Austin Russell, Luminar will provide both its hardware, combining the lidar sensor and cameras, and new perception software that helps the artificial intelligence driving Volvo's vehicles more rapidly interpret copious amounts of sensor data flowing in. The investment in Luminar by Volvo Cars Tech Fund is "significant," according to Russell, though neither he nor the automaker is disclosing the amount. "This is a partnership with Volvo Cars to power their autonomous vehicle development effort with our lidar sensing platform at its core," Russell, who founded Luminar in 2012 while still in high school, told Forbes.

Drones armed with computer vision software could enable new forms of automated skyborne surveillance to watch for violence below. One glimpse of that future comes from UK and Indian researchers who demonstrated a drone surveillance system that can automatically detect small groups of people fighting each other. The seed idea for researchers to develop such a drone surveillance system was first planted in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and injured hundreds in 2013. It was not until the Manchester Arena bombing that killed 23 and wounded 139--including many children leaving an Ariana Grande concert--when the researchers made some progress. This time, they harnessed a form of the popular artificial intelligence technique known as deep learning.

The Greater Paris Region and Beijing Municipality signed on Tuesday a five-year deal to focus on smart cities and sustainable development, Greater Paris Region President Valérie Pécresse told a press conference held in Beijing. Cooperation between the two cities, which began in 1988, will extend beyond fighting air pollution to domains such as artificial intelligence (AI), smart cities and autonomous driving, Pécresse said, noting that the two sides will fund a joint lab named City of the Future. "270 Chinese companies have invested in the greater Paris region, creating 3,700 jobs," Pécresse said, noting that there is room for further growth. Paris has become a more attractive destination than London for the first time when it comes to luring investment, Reuters reported, citing a report from consultancy firm EY. The result was partially thanks to French President Emmanuel Macron's economic reforms, the report said.

AI has the potential to add 10% to UK GDP by 2030 if adoption is widespread

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, East German citizens were offered the chance to read the files kept on them by the Stasi, the much-feared Communist-era secret police service. To date, it is estimated that only 10 percent have taken the opportunity. In 2007, James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, asked that he not be given any information about his APOE gene, one allele of which is a known risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. Most people tell pollsters that, given the choice, they would prefer not to know the date of their own death--or even the future dates of happy events. Each of these is an example of willful ignorance.