"The Company is immediately ceasing all operations" and has filed applications to begin insolvency proceedings in the UK, Cambridge Analytica said in a statement. The statement also pushed back against widespread allegations that the company had improperly obtained Facebook user data to craft targeted advertisements, saying it "has been the subject of numerous unfounded accusations and, despite the Company's efforts to correct the record, has been vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas". The company, which was retained by Donald Trump's presidential campaign, has come under tremendous pressure after it was revealed to have obtained data associated with up to 87m Facebook users. Seeking to contain a spiralling crisis, Facebook executives have repeatedly faulted Cambridge Analytica and researcher Aleksander Kogan for the data transfer. The company says Mr Kogan harvested data from a survey app and then passed it along to Cambridge Analytica, which did not destroy the data despite having claimed to do so.

Last year, M12, Microsoft's venture fund (formerly known as Microsoft Ventures), set out on a mission to uncover the most innovative startups harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform businesses and solve real-world challenges. Together with Madrona Venture Group, Notion and Vertex Ventures, we put a combined $3.5 million in investment funding on the line to kick off Innovate.AI, a global startup competition that would drive progress in AI and further Microsoft's commitment to making AI accessible for all. Six months later, we're overwhelmed with the response. Not only did we receive hundreds of submissions, the companies were all innovative, impactful and inspiring. In healthcare, startups are utilizing AI to create personal and mental health assistants, conduct drug research and diagnosis as well as spot patterns and abnormalities.

In 2017, these 15 self-driving car start-ups have cumulatively raised funding of more than $3 billion till date and the funding raised in 2017 was 100% more than 2016. The total funding of all self-driving scar tart-ups from both private and corporate investors has gone past $5.5 billion as of March 2018.The digitization is also fuelling the prospects of autonomous on demand ride hailing taxis. It is worth mentioning that only few of the start-ups are generating revenue and some are yet to showcase a clear path to scale up and ultimately become profitable. US is considered to be leading the way in terms of legislation for driverless vehicles. States in America including Nevada, Florida, California and Michigan have already passed laws concerning driverless cars.

The University of Cambridge is set to receive a new AI supercomputer as part of a £10 million partnership between the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The system, which is supported by Cambridge's Research Computing Service, aims to help companies to create real business value from the use of advanced computing infrastructure. The supercomputer is part of the UK government's AI Sector Deal, which involves more than 50 leading technology companies and organisations. The deal is worth almost £1 billion, including around £300 million of private sector investment in AI. 'AI research requires supercomputing capacity capable of processing huge amounts of data at very high speeds, said Dr Paul Calleja, Director of the University's Research Computing Service. 'Cambridge's supercomputer provides researchers with the fast and affordable supercomputing power they need for AI work.' UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Matt Hancock stated: 'The UK must be at the forefront of emerging technologies, pushing boundaries and harnessing innovation to change people's lives for the better.

You'll even discover how to use artificial neural networks and deep learning structures for classification!

Online dating apps aren't sitting idly by as Facebook makes its big leap into helping users find love on its platform. At its annual F8 developers conference on Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed Facebook's plans to add a dating feature to the site. Now, popular dating apps including Tinder, Bumble and Hinge are firing back at the social media giant. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) introduced the firm's new dating feature at the firm's annual F8 developers conference in San Jose, California on Tuesday'Come on in, the water's warm. Their product would be great for US/Russia relationships'.

Drones work is amazing, and the wonderful images we are able to experience is all because of the great photographers. Jani Ylinampa, the nature photographer captured the beauty of Kotisaari Island during the four seasons with his drone. Back in 2015, Jani took an aerial photo of the idyllic island nestled in the Kemi river, and the image went viral on social media, and he returned back to capture more of this beauty. "The seasonal changes in Lapland are drastic and this little island is the perfect way to display them," says Jani. This beautifully captured island is four miles from the Arctic Circle and temperature drop to well below freezing during winter months.

This call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Verisk's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Lee Shavel. Mr. Shavel, please go ahead. We appreciate you joining us today for a discussion of our first quarter of 2018 financial results. With me on the call this morning are Scott Stephenson, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Anquillare, Chief Operating Officer. Following comments by Scott, Mark and myself, highlighting some key points about our financial performance, we will open the call for your questions. The earnings release referenced on this call as well as the associated 10-Q can be found in the Investors section of our website, verisk.com. The earnings release has also been attached to an 8-K that we have furnished to the SEC. We also filed an 8-K on April 26, 2018, with a description of our business segment recasting. A replay of this call will be available for 30 days on our website and by dial-in. Finally, as set forth in more detail in today's earnings release, I will remind everyone that today's call may include forward-looking statements about Verisk's future performance. Actual performance could differ materially from what is suggested by our comments today. Information about the factors that could affect future performance is contained in our recent SEC filings. Now, I will turn the call over to Scott Stephenson. The first quarter was another example of our team achieving a high level of organic revenue growth, which remains the most important measure of our vitality as an organization. This growth was a product of our traditional multilevel growth plan including, first, the development of new customers for existing solutions, such as was seen in our claims analytics platform; secondly, the cross-selling of our existing solutions to existing customers as seen in our imagery solutions and upstream oil and gas analytics; and thirdly, new products including insurance data hosting. Over the last 90 days, I was particularly impressed by the quality of our engagement with many large leading customers resulting in real-time business wins and opportunities into the future. We continue to enjoy visits from the most senior leaders at some of our biggest customers who are looking to get closer to our pipeline of innovations. We held the largest gathering in our history for customers of our catastrophe analytics solutions and we're impressed again with the level of engagement and input from our clients.

A breast cancer screening error affecting 450,000 women may have led to hundreds of lives being cut short, health secretary Jeremy Hunt has revealed. Hunt said that a computer algorithm failure dating back to 2009 had meant that many women aged 68 to 71 were not invited to their final routine screening. It is not known whether any delay in diagnosis resulted in avoidable death, but it is estimated that between 135 and 270 women had their lives shortened as a result, he said. The issue was first brought to the attention of the Department of Health and Social Care in January, but was initially thought to pose a "limited" risk to patients. It was escalated to ministers in March by Public Health England (PHE), with the Government told the error should not be made public to ensure existing screening services were not overwhelmed.

The United States and China currently dominate the world of artificial intelligence, but used very different approaches to get there. While the US's academic system has generated and incubated the research that made today's AI possible, China's government has pledged billions in funding and offered the technology its full-throated support. It's a space-race redux, where world superpowers battle to define generations of technology to come. Despite the duopoly narrative, other countries, including Canada and the UK, have ramped investment in the technology, announcing deals to fund private and public AI ventures. After years of a slow trickle, the first months of 2018 have seen an explosion of government-backed projects announced all over the world.