Goldman Sachs is giving another go at predicting which team will win this year's World Cup. After incorrectly predicting how the 2014 tournament would turn out, it's trying again and its calculations say that France, Brazil, Portugal and Germany will make it to the semi-finals with Brazil beating out Germany in the final game. The financial firm used machine learning to come up with these predictions, feeding team characteristics, individual player data and recent team performance information into four machine learning models, which then compared that data to the scores of all of the World Cup and European Cup matches since 2005. Goldman Sachs then ran one million simulations of World Cup outcomes to determine who would come out on top. Of course, you can't account for all of the variables that influence how a tournament will play out -- something made quite clear in 2014.

Yesterday we heard from Bethesda and Microsoft, and today we've got Ubisoft and Sony on tap. Ubisoft is typically a little peppier than some of the other conferences, though it's hard to fall short of something like EA: in the past Aisha Tyler has injected a little energy into the show, but it doesn't seem like she'll be returning this year. There are a ton of games, however, so here's a rundown on what to expect. The show starts at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey: The new Assassin's Creed is headlining Ubisoft's show this year.

The new MITx MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science, which opened for enrollment today, will help online learners develop their skills in the booming field of data science. The program offers learners an MIT-quality, professional credential, while also providing an academic pathway to pursue a PhD at MIT or a master's degree elsewhere. "There are many online programs that provide a professional overview of data science, but they don't offer the level of detail learners gain from an actual, residential master's program," says Professor Devavrat Shah, faculty director of the program and MIT professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). "This new MicroMasters program in Statistics and Data Science is bringing the quality, rigor, and structure of a master's-level, residential program in data science at MIT to a wider audience around the world, and at a very accessible price, so people can learn anywhere they are while keeping their day jobs." In all, seven universities will be accepting the new MicroMasters Statistics and Data Science (SDS) credential towards a master's degree, including the Rochester Institute of Technology (United States), Doane University (United States), Galileo University (Guatemala), Reykjavik University (Iceland), Curtin University (Australia), Deakin University (Australia), and RMIT University (Australia).

The UK technology sector will have to lose its fear of failure and embrace the artificial intelligence revolution, the Minister for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has argued. Matt Hancock MP, speaking at the CogX event in London, said that more firms should take the'fail fast' approach embraced by so many technology organisations around the world. "Both in the private and public sector, I want to see more freedom to fail," Hancock said. "Anybody who's been involved in a startup knows that the freedom to fail is vital to even starting. "In government, having been responsible for driving out the use of digital technology, I know that concerns about risk are often a big reason why things move slowly." He also emphasised the importance of the UK getting on board with artificial intelligence and similar disruptive technologies, so that it doesn't get left behind. According to Hancock, there is little point in trying to stem the tide of job disruption as a result of artificial intelligence. Instead, he believes that we should embrace new types of work that emerge. "My view having studied this is that the jobs that are going, are going anyway.

Imagine a world in which machines interpret the emotional state of humans and adapt their behavior to give appropriate responses to those emotions. Well, artificial emotional intelligence, which is also known as emotion AI or affective computing, is already being used to develop systems and products that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects (with an "a," not an "e"). In psychology, an "affect" is a term used to describe the experience of feeling or emotion. If you've seen "Solo: A Star Wars Story", then you've seen the poster child for artificial emotional intelligence: L3-37. Lando Calrissian's droid companion and navigator (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) instigates a slave revolt to escape from Kessel, but is severely damaged during the diversion.

Britain's crumbling roads could be fixed by robots capable of filling in a pothole in a minute, scientists have predicted. An army of autonomous road vehicles or drones could one day be prowling around towns and cities identifying cracks in roads and pavements before a pothole develops. In just one minute, a robot with an attached 3D printer will be able to spray asphalt into a crack in the road to repair it. And the robots will even work anti-social hours, completing their work at night to ensure roads to not have to be closed down during the day. Leeds City Council is already working with a team of engineers and designers to pioneer the concept of'self-repairing cities'.

Nick Loui had never been asked about neural networks from a man wearing a violet leotard before. But the CEO and founder of CivicFeed didn't bat an eyelid as he thoughtfully answered the question. Given the context -- a panel at Lightning In A Bottle -- the dress code was A-OK. The question was part of a broader discussion that Loui was having with Dr. Nathan Walworth about the ethics of artificial intelligence and how engineers hold responsibility for coding a bias-free world. Using AI for social good is something Loui, a former web-dev and marketer, feels passionately about.

Artificial intelligence startup Eigen Technologies has raised £13 million from Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments and Singapore's state investment fund Temasek. London-based Eigen uses artificial intelligence technology to read legal and financial documents, making it easier for lawyers and bankers to analyse complex contracts -- everything from derivatives to land deeds -- and find specific clauses. Goldman Sachs is a customer, as are Linklaters, Evercore, and ING. Eigen's cofounder and CEO Dr. Lewis Z. Liu, who was featured on Business Insider's UK Fintech 35 under 35, said in a statement: "Three and a half years ago we set out to be a truly unique AI company, one that allows our clients to harness the power of their qualitative data to make better decisions. This Series A round underlines our ambitions and is the next major step in our expansion plan.

London might be tussling with Uber over its taxi license and grappling with Brexit, but it wants you to know that it's still a major hub for artificial intelligence. On Monday the city's Mayor, Sadiq Khan, promoted a survey he'd commissioned that suggested London was the'capital' of AI for Europe. "London has twice as many AI companies as Paris and Berlin combined," Khan said on the sidelines of the launch of London Tech Week, a collection of 200 tech events across the city that also kicked off on Monday (disclosure: Forbes is the festival's official media partner). Khan denied his transport office was smothering innovation by moving to take away Uber's taxi license last year. "We're not saying'no' to innovation, but'no' to rule-breaking," he said.

As AI and robotics develop side by side, the medium-term future will see infant-like robots that can learn for themselves and crow-like machine intelligences that can teach themselves to use tools, claims a leading AI researcher. But their progress will go far beyond there. In 2018, most people are worried that AI and robotics might automate their jobs and leave them scrabbling in the gig economy for a regular wage. But one AI expert believes that the technologies' ambitions are much bigger than that: in the centuries ahead, AI and robots will "emigrate" from Earth and communicate with each other across the universe, he says. But long before then, general artificial intelligences will emerge that can be taught like human children, and which can teach themselves about how the world works through "power play" and "artificial curiosity", he said.