Artificial intelligence has received a mixed welcome from corporates exploring how the technology could disrupt their operations. While AI can deliver time and cost savings, automation and actionable insights, executives are also concerned that the tool will displace professionals like accountants and procurement officials. New research suggests, however, that the technology is finding harmony in these two areas of the enterprise. Small business accounting firm Xero and spend management company Ivalua each released new research this week analyzing how artificial intelligence has impacted their perspective arenas. "The accounting industry is frequently held up as one of the industries most likely to be negatively impacted by AI and automation," Xero said in its announcement on Wednesday (June 6) of new research on the impact of AI on small business accounting.

From the spears hurled by Romans to the missiles launched by fighter pilots, the weapons humans use to kill each other have always been subject to improvement. Militaries seek to make each one ever-more lethal and, in doing so, better protect the soldier who wields it. But in the next evolution of combat, the U.S. Army is heading down a path that may lead humans off the battlefield entirely. Over the next few years, the Pentagon is poised to spend almost $1 billion for a range of robots designed to complement combat troops. Beyond scouting and explosives disposal, these new machines will sniff out hazardous chemicals or other agents, perform complex reconnaissance and even carry a soldier's gear.

I'll never forget the time I watched the trailer for 300, the iconic fantasy war film from 2006 about King Leonidas of Sparta and his clash against the Persians with a heavily outnumbered army. As soon as I saw the scene where Leonidas, played by Gerard Butler, screamed "This is Sparta" at the top of his lungs and then kicked a dude down a deep concrete well, I knew the movie was going to be an instant classic. Less than a year after touring Egypt with Origins, Ubisoft is taking us to King Leonidas' world in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. The new game takes place in 431BC, right at the start of the Peloponnesian war between the competing cities of Sparta and Athens. As these two empires fight to establish broader power, your play as a young Spartan mercenary who goes on quest to help his people defeat the Athenians.

The report says that London has an opportunity to build on the current levels of female founders and provide a start-up environment that encourages higher levels of female participation in AI and across the technology sector. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: "There are few areas of innovation that have the power to define our future economy and society more than artificial intelligence. "The research describes a city with a rich technology ecosystem, a strong pipeline of AI innovation and an academic and investment base set up for the long term. "London's unique global status as a capital of finance, business, government and technology is our standout asset. Everything entrepreneurs need is here in one place - not least access to clients." Tabitha Goldstaub, Co-Founder at CognitionX, said: "We are at a crossroads.

Verity Studios, which took precision drone swarm technology from ETH Zurich and turned it into a spectacular live event display system, has announced a round of Series A funding totaling US $18 million from Fontinalis Partners, Airbus Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Kitty Hawk. This is a lot of money for a company that most people may not know exists even if they view a Verity-powered drone show firsthand, but that's part of what makes Verity special: Everything they do is reliable, seamless, and safe, leading to experiences that have a truly mesmerizing effect. The reason we follow companies like Verity so closely, and the reason why we're happy when they get funded, is because they've managed to transition some fairly amazing robotics research into a successful business, which is a very difficult thing to do. The kinds of things that make Verity special come from over a decade of work at the Flying Machine Arena at ETH Zurich, led by Professor Raffaello D'Andrea, a lot of which we've covered in the past. For example, Verity's drones are fully redundant, able to recover from "a failed battery, a failed motor, a failed connector, a failed propeller, a failed sensor, or a failure of any other component ... through the duplication of critical components and the use of proprietary algorithms, which enable safe emergency responses to component failures."

Well, that was a disappointment. Square Enix held its E3 showcase earlier today and it was, to put it mildly, underwhelming. If you were hoping for more information about Final Fantasy VII Remake, or the mysterious Avengers Project, sorry -- neither made the cut this year. A number of smaller releases were absent too, including Dragon Quest Builders 2, The World Ends With You: Final Remix, and Left Alive, a new apocalyptic shooter directed by Armored Core producer Toshifumi Nabeshima. So what did we get instead?

HANOVER, GERMANY - APRIL 25: Close up of the digital display while a camera and radar system assists as artificial intelligence takes over driving the car during tests of autonomous car abilities conducted by Continental AG on the A2 highway on April 25, 2018, near Hanover, Germany. Israeli artificial intelligence (AI) startup, Hailo Technologies, has closed a $12.5 million series A from Maniv Mobility, OurCrowd, and NextGear to develop a chip for deep learning on edge devices and processing of high-resolution sensory data in real time. According to a report from Markets and Markets, edge computing will be worth $6.72 billion by 2020, and IC Insights reported that integrated circuits in cars are expected to generate global sales of $42.9 billion in 2021. In 2017, McKinsey reported in the study, Self Driving Car Technology: when will robots hit the road?, that ADAS systems grew to 140 million in 2016 from 90 million units in 2014. "Because of the low latency required for autonomous driving and advanced driving assistance, deep learning with convolutional neural networks, running on in-vehicle hardware, is necessary," offers Tom Coughlin, IEEE Fellow and President at Coughlin Associates.

Our world is becoming increasingly complex. Every day an immense amount of data is generated, which, if properly understood, can help us make better sense of our world. Until recently, we did not have the means to make proper sense of all of this data. But recent developments in artificial intelligence have changed this. Now, we are able to draw meaningful insights from enormous data sets and use these to make better decisions.

In the financial services industry, innovations such as faster payments, together with global regulations and regulatory bodies1 raise a significant question: Do existing risk-rule-based money laundering detection systems really work? Financial institutions may also wonder about the effectiveness of fraud detection, the danger of false positives, structural costs, and the impact on customer transaction experience. According to Gartner, "if money laundering were an economy, it would be the fifth largest in the world." Strikingly, the UN also estimates that the amount of money laundered annually is equivalent to 2-5% of the global GDP. Another report from the Heritage Foundation suggests that complying with anti-money laundering (AML) rules, which require hiring the right talent needed to file suspicious activity reports, costs U.S. companies alone as much as $8 billion a year.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is best known for its ability to see (as in driverless cars) and listen (as in Alexa and other home assistants). My colleagues and I are developing an AI system that can smell human breath and learn how to identify a range of illness-revealing substances that we might breathe out. The sense of smell is used by animals and even plants to identify hundreds of different substances that float in the air. But compared to that of other animals, the human sense of smell is far less developed and certainly not used to carry out daily activities. For this reason, humans aren't particularly aware of the richness of information that can be transmitted through the air, and can be perceived by a highly sensitive olfactory system.