The Language Big Data Alliance (LBDA) is to host a major summit in London later this month. Formed by leading research institutes, universities and government departments from around Europe, the LBDA works to create solutions in the fields of Big Data and artificial intelligence. Now it is to host a summit in the United Kingdom for the first time on Friday May 25th at St James's in London, where a number of high-profile executives, including the Chief Executive Officer of Ipsos MORI Ben Page, will deliver keynotes. Across the day there will also be panel discussions from high calibre speakers and key-decision makers in the research, education and technology sectors. "The ultimate goal of this Summit is to recruit partners and other long-standing members of the LBDA and unite them with the partners in our ecosystem to help further the mass adoption and application of AI and Big Data in educational, technological and scientific research in Europe," said Eric Yu, co-founder and secretary general of the LBDA.

At first glance there is a lot of enthusiasm in the insurance industry towards the Internet of Things (IoT) even if there is some uncertainty about exactly how to embrace the transformation and this new type of customer-centricity. When we look at the smart home for example, most of us think of it as an opportunity for remote control of the home with some risk sensing that insurers can tap into. But there is a deeper impact, about people living in a connected eco-system in the future. There is no sign that this prospect of hyper-connection is going to stop. For insurance companies facing big decisions about where to go next with strategic technology investments, it is a bit like Alice's world in Wonderland.

You can now choose from six new voices for your Google Assistant. With AI and WaveNet technology, we can better mimic the subtleties of the human voice--the pitch, pace and, um, the pauses. And the Google Assistant will be able to understand when you're talking to it versus someone else, and respond accordingly. For example, you can create a Custom Routine for family dinner, and kick it off by saying "Hey Google, dinner's ready" and the Assistant can turn on your favorite music, turn off the TV, and broadcast "dinner time!" to everyone in the house. Smart Display devices will be available this summer, bringing the simplicity of voice and the Google Assistant together with a rich visual experience.

Data from millions of Facebook users who used a popular personality app, including their answers to intimate questionnaires, was left exposed online for anyone to access, a New Scientist investigation has found. Academics at the University of Cambridge distributed the data from the personality quiz app myPersonality to hundreds of researchers via a website with insufficient security provisions, which led to it being left vulnerable to access for four years. Gaining access illicitly was relatively easy. The data was highly sensitive, revealing personal details of Facebook users, such as the results of psychological tests. It was meant to be stored and shared anonymously, however such poor precautions were taken that deanonymising would not be hard.

I grew up in a small town in Transylvania, and will always remember the day when I assembled my first computer and loaded the first mp3 songs and movies on it. At the time we didn't yet have Internet in my home, and I was exchanging files via CDs with my friends and my father's colleagues. By the time I went to college, my campus had its own intranet, and my friends and I built up a collection of hundreds of albums, television series, movies, software packages, anything you could imagine. It was as if all of the students were part of this giant web, seeding and peering on torrents while constantly exchanging the latest school news in forums and chat rooms. Later, I used the internet to find my first internship abroad, master's scholarship, job, and apartment.

If you have to walk a different route to the shops, it's normally not too much of a stretch to consult our'inner satnav' and chart a new course. That's because the human brain has a range of built-in mechanisms that help you find your way. But the underlying brain computation that goes into even simple navigation, such as planning the most direct route between points A and B, remains pretty murky. A team from Google DeepMind and University College London in the United Kingdom have trained a form of artificial intelligence to traverse a virtual environment from one point to another. The computer program, described in the journal Nature today, developed "neurons" similar to "grid cells", which are the brain cells found in mammals that bestow navigation skills.

The mantra of modern technology is to improve and innovate continuously. It makes sense as we strive to look for more improved ways to get processes, actions and activities done. Automation and machine learning, for instance, is currently used across many industries to streamline basic processes and remove the repetition from a normal worker's routine. Not to mention, machines tend to be more efficient and less resource intensive. A robotic or automated system continues to work at its set performance, never tiring, growing hungry or getting burnt out. As we create more innovative solutions as a society, do we also set ourselves up for harder, more damaging falls?

The Space Growth Partnership (SGP), an industry led initiative, has published a strategy document which sets out a vision for enhanced growth in the UK space sector over the next decade. The'Prosperity from Space' document has committed to improving low-cost access to space, advancing in-space robotics, improving global connectivity, and building on earth information services, which includes navigation, analytics and security. "This sector-led strategy sets out the ambition of the companies, institutions, academics and entrepreneurs of the UK's space sector," said Andy Green, Chair of the Space Sector Council and President of UKspace. "Space delivers tangible benefits to everyone in the UK, improving communications, travel and security amongst much else. "We will build on our successful partnership with Government to create high value jobs and growth across the UK for the benefit of all.

The idea of an artificial mind that can think by itself has always loomed large in the human imagination – the ancient Greeks told myths of mechanical men. As an academic discipline, the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been studied since the 1950s, after computer scientist Alan Turing first asked, "can machines do what we, as thinking entities, do?" But in 2018, AI is firmly out of the realms of science fiction or academic theory. Last week UK prime minister Theresa May stood up in her keynote address to the World Economic Forum and announced her ambition to establish the UK as a "world leader" in AI, alongside plans for its ethical oversight. These days, voice assistants like Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana are in every smart device and computer, and smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home are selling in their tens of millions.

Artificial intelligence is one of the most over-hyped technologies -- but we may also be underestimating it.