My role at SAP is IoT Evangelist. It's my job to go around and speak about how the Internet of Things is changing the way we live, work, and run our businesses. IoT Evangelist is a job title that didn't exist 5 or 10 years ago – mainly because the Internet of Things wasn't a "thing" 5 or 10 years ago. Today it is, so here I am. The fact is, technological change has a tremendous impact on the way we spend our working lives.

LiDAR is having a moment right now helping self-driving cars and robots not hit things, but don't forget about what else it can do. In a study called The Bare Earth, scientists from the Washington Geological Survey used it to image the ground right down to dirt and rocks. Stripped of trees and other distractions, the images provide not only valuable geological survey data, but stunning, otherworldly views of our planet. The image above depicts a LiDAR relative elevation model (REM), showing current and previous channels carved out by the Sauk River in Washington State's Skagit and Snohomish counties. In the regular satellite image below, however, only the active, vegetation-free channels are clearly visible -- a striking display of what the technique can reveal.

Engineers have been spotted testing a prototype drone that should allow Amazon packages to be dropped off safely. The prototype was seen being lowered up and down by a huge crane as tests are carried out to ensure the drone can avoid obstacles and land safely in gardens. Seattle-based Amazon is believed to be testing its sophisticated'sense and avoid' technology at a secret location in the Cambridgeshire countryside. Seattle-based Amazon is believed to be testing its sophisticated'sense and avoid' technology This would enable the drones to eventually fly for ten miles at 400ft (121m) and carry packages of up to 5lbs (2.2kg) to people's homes in under 30 minutes. The size of the drones is unknown, with various shapes and sizes being tested, but some have been estimated as measuring between 17 and 25 inches wide.

Volkswagen has unveiled an all-electric minibus to target urban customers who prefer to pay for use rather than own a vehicle, furthering the German company's push into new forms of online-controlled personal transport services. Volkswagen's (VW) new MOIA'mobility services' division on Monday announced plans for a fully electric international ride-pooling service that aims to remove 1 million cars from European and U.S. cities by 2025. The new division aims to take on Uber with its services. The six seater all electric minibus will target urban customers who prefer to pay for use rather than own a vehicle, furthering the German company's push into new forms of online-controlled personal transport. The business prospects are huge, consultants A.T. Kearney said in a study published in October. The global market for self-driving vehicles and related services may surge to $282 billion by 2030 from $51 billion in 2020, the firm said.

By thinking of atoms as letters and molecules as words, artificial intelligence software from IBM is now employing the same methods computers use to translate languages to predict outcomes of organic chemical reactions, which could speed the development of new drugs. In the past 50 years, scientists have tried to teach computers how chemistry works so that computers can help predict the results of organic chemical reactions. However, organic chemicals can be extraordinarily complex, and simulations of their behavior can prove time-consuming and inaccurate. Instead, researchers at IBM took the kind of AI program normally used to translate languages and applied it toward organic chemistry. "Instead of translating English into German or Chinese, we had the same artificial intelligence technology look at hundreds of thousands or millions of chemical reactions and had it learn the basic structure of the'language' of organic chemistry, and then had it try to predict the outcomes of possible organic chemical reactions," says study co-author Teodoro Laino at IBM Research in Zurich. "We want to help chemists design new synthesis routes for organic compounds," Laino says.

UK companies are increasingly looking to disruptive technology as a means of staying on the top of their game, with nearly nine out of ten plotting investments in artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technology by 2020. Research from Deloitte found that more than half of UK businesses plan to invest £10m in digital by 2020. This data is especially important in light of the fact only 10% of respondents saw the UK as a leader in the space. The report, comprised of 51 organisations with a combined market value of £229bn, saw 73% say they will invest in robotics, 63% in AR and VR, 62% in wearables, 54% in biometrics and 43% in blockchain. Despite attracting the most, current investment in AI remains low, with only a fifth of respondents saying they have invested in the sector.

Algorithms will be as important as ammunition in the future of warfare, according to a new report. The US armed services invested $7.4 billion (£5.5bn) in AI, big data and cloud computing last year which is set to change modern warfare, the report revealed. Military chiefs have warned the US'can either lead the coming revolution, or fall victim to it'. The report comes as the Pentagon focuses on improving its algorithms amid growing concern powerful Chinese and Russian AI could be set on world domination. The US armed services invested $7.4 billion ($5.5bn) in AI, big data and cloud computing last year which is set to change modern warfare, the report revealed.

Today on the VOICES stage, BoF and Google announced a partnership designed to explore and demonstrate the potential applications of artificial intelligence in fashion, and begin a dialogue between the industry and one of the global leaders in machine learning. In its first instance, the partnership has prompted a series of experiments with data sets from BoF's Fashion Week coverage, the early fruits of which were unveiled before VOICES attendees here in Oxfordshire. Representing Google was Amit Sood, who, in 2011, founded what became the Google Cultural Institute, a non-profit arm of the company, now housed in a grand hôtel particulier in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, that has partnered with over 1,300 museums and foundations to digitise everything from the Dead Sea Scrolls to Marc Chagall's ceiling at the Opéra Garnier, making them accessible on a platform called Google Arts & Culture. The institute is now experimenting with what machine learning can enable when applied to this catalogue, with a focus on fashion as well as art. Sood showed members of the VOICES community some of the work his team of engineers have been doing and, alongside BoF's Imran Amed, shared the results of applying Google's machine learning algorithms to over 70,000 runway looks from BoF's coverage of the last fours years of shows.

Volkswagen has unveiled the electric van that's a key part of its MOIA autonomous vehicle ride-sharing service. The van-pooling MOIA service will launch in Hamburg in 2018 with 200 vans, letting passengers enter a departure point and destination in an app. "We've set ourselves the goal of taking more than a million cars off the roads in Europe and the USA by 2025," said MOIA CEO Ole Harms. MOIA's aim is to eventually put autonomous, purpose-built vehicles on the road without drivers. At Disrupt, the company said that the business can still be profitable without the need for autonomous operation. MOIA also revealed more details about the ride-pooling service, including pricing.

Data is the propulsive energy behind the fourth industrial revolution – playing the same role as coal, oil and electricity did in the previous revolutions. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the new engine, just as the railways connected north and south, roads and cars connected our cities, and electrification lit up our homes and allowed domestic appliances to free women to go to work. As when agriculture was mechanised or mass production became mainstream, some jobs will be lost, even as other jobs will be generated. But to harness AI's job-generating power, we need to ensure that it has the flows of data crucial to its success. Without data, there is no AI.