The government is planning to create a raft of new police powers as part of a crackdown on the civilian use of drones, the Department for Transport has announced. The new drone bill to be published in 2018 will allow police officers to order drone operators to ground their devices where necessary, alongside a series of new changes that will create a mandatory registry for larger unmanned aerial vehicles, such as those sold by Parrot or DJI. It could also include a ban on drones flying near airports or above 122 metres (400 feet), the government says, and a requirement for drone owners to use apps, rather than simple remote controls, to fly their aircraft, in order to ensure that the rules are always readily accessible and incorporated into the flight plan. The proposed bill will be accompanied by changes to the air navigation order that will introduce safety awareness tests for drone users, and the requirement to register with the government before flying drones that weigh more than 250g. Aviation Minister Baroness Sugg said: "Drones have great potential and we want to do everything possible to harness the benefits of this technology as it develops, but if we are to realise the full potential of this incredibly exciting technology, we have to take steps to stop illegal use of these devices and address safety and privacy concerns. "These new laws strike a balance, to allow the vast majority of drone users to continue flying safely and responsibly, while also paving the way for drone technology to revolutionise businesses and public services." Tim Johnson, policy director at the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), said: "The CAA supports the safe development of drones in the UK.

Britain's Conservative government on Monday announced plans to invest 735 million pounds ($970 million) in areas including artificial intelligence, driverless cars and the life sciences, "with the aim of making the U.K. the world's most innovative nation by 2030."

A nightmarish new image shows a'zombie' head after it was infected with a deadly parasitic fungus. The photo, taken in a forest in Singapore, shows fungal stalks bursting from the long-dead fly, which is missing both of its eyes. The photographer believes an infamous parasite named Cordyceps, which takes over its victims' bodies like a horror movie zombie virus, infected the fly before it died. A nightmarish new image shows a fly's'zombie' head after it was infected with a deadly parasitic fungus. Separate species of Cordyceps prefer different hosts, but generally the fungus takes over the bodies of insects and forces them to walk to the top of plants.

Digital transformation is by no means a new topic. It is a trend that we have seen gradually evolve across all industries in the past few years, with the retail banking space having to adapt to changing customer expectations, and new regulatory requirements. It is therefore no surprise that in GFT's annual Banking Expert Survey, it was revealed that all UK retail banks now have a digital transformation programme in place. This is a positive sign and shows that digital transformation strategies are perhaps now just part of'business-as-usual' in what is a rapidly evolving digital landscape. What is important, however, are the specifics of these strategies.

Cyber-security companies are turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to ward off growing number of attacks on networks, Finland-based Internet security firm F-Secure said. As the world is fast moving towards Internet of Things and connected devices, deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) has become inevitable for cyber security firms to analyse huge amount of data to save networks from infiltration attempts, F-Secure's Security Advisor Sean Sullivan said. Networks are persistently exposed to threats like malware, phishing, password breaches and denial of service attacks. On a daily basis, F-Secure Labs on an average receives sample data of 500,000 files from its customers that include 10,000 malware variants and 60,000 malicious URLs for analysis and protection, Sullivan said. For humans, it is a big task to go through such huge amount of data and machine learning tools and AI are lending a helping hand at this stage, he said.

Business Secretary Greg Clark has today (27 November 2017) launched the government's ambitious Industrial Strategy, setting out a long-term vision for how Britain can build on its economic strengths, address its productivity performance, embrace technological change and boost the earning power of people across the UK. With the aim of making the UK the world's most innovative nation by 2030, the government has committed to investing a further £725 million over the next 3 years in the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) to respond to some of the greatest global challenges and the opportunities faced by the UK. This will include £170 million to transform our construction sector and help create affordable places to live and work that are safer, healthier and use less energy, and up to £210 million to improve early diagnosis of illnesses and develop precision medicine for patients across the UK. The government has previously committed £1 billion to the first wave of Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund projects, including investing £246 million in next generation battery technology and £86 million in robotics hubs across the UK. Last week the Prime Minister announced an ambition to increase the level of investment in research and development (R&D), rising from 1.7% to 2.4% of GDP by 2027.

According to Peter Pugh-Jones, head of technology for SAS in the UK and Ireland, organisations will need to hire people with a diverse skill set in order to advance their artificial intelligence capabilities. He said that, for SAS, the ideal person would have a grounding in an area such as analytics and have the willingness to diversify into other areas. His comments come after the publication of a survey of enterprises about AI-readiness carried out by SAS that revealed a sense of optimism, but also organisational challenges that would accompany adoption. One of the biggest challenges was reported to be jobs - both the loss of existing jobs due to AI and the difficulty in filling the new jobs necessary to develop AI capabilities. When asked, "what are you experiencing or expect to be the biggest challenges with deployment of AI in your organisation",' 26% said it was a skills challenge or the lack of data scientists and 19% reported that they have no data science team in place.

Germany's recent move to ban the sale of children's smartwatches with built-in voice recognition technology may lead privacy regulators to adopt a ban for other such devices, privacy professionals told Bloomberg Law. Inc.'s Alexa, become commonplace, German privacy officials may seek to ban them or restrict how they are used. The global voice and speech recognition market is valued at nearly $6.2 billion in 2017 and is likely to reach $18.3 billion by 2023, according to an August report by competitive market research company MarketsAndMarkets Research Private Ltd. "If something is said in your living room and that speech is recorded and passed along to data providers, it's exactly the same as surveillance, Marit Hansen, data protection officer for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, told Bloomberg Law. As voice-controlled devices continue to grow, so too will data privacy concerns over devices that store voice commands and back up the data through a central server, Hansen said. German regulators are considering how to regulate such devices under German privacy law amendments set to take effect when the European Union's new privacy regime, the General Data Protection Regulation takes effect in May 2018, she said.

Cyber security companies are turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to ward off growing number of attacks on networks, Finland-based internet security firm F-Secure said. As the world is fast moving towards Internet of Things and connected devices, deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) has become inevitable for cyber security firms to analyse huge amount of data to save networks from infiltration attempts, F-Secure's Security Advisor Sean Sullivan said. Networks are persistently exposed to threats like malware, phishing, password breaches and denial of service attacks. On a daily basis, F-Secure Labs on an average receives sample data of 500,000 files from its customers that include 10,000 malware variants and 60,000 malicious URLs for analysis and protection, Sullivan said. For humans, it is a big task to go through such huge amount of data and machine learning tools and AI are lending a helping hand at this stage, he said.

Retail banking is being attacked by both small fintech firms as well as the big tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and others. The best defense that traditional financial institutions can use against this invasion is a strong, personalized digital banking offense. Modest-sized fintech firms and large tech giants continue to make retail banking inroads worldwide, providing services that leverage the best in digital technology to deliver a customer experience that removes cumbersome steps from both routine and more involved banking engagements. Relative financial newcomers like AliPay (China), WeChat (China), Rakuten (Japan), Atom (UK), Monzo (UK), Starling (UK), N26 (Germany) and Revolut (UK) have joined household names like PayPal, Amazon and Google to disrupt the banking ecosystem, leveraging modern infrastructures and innovative cultures. According to Bain, "Many of the tech giants possess the ingredients of success: digital prowess, large customer bases, organizations well versed in improving the customer experience, and ample leeway to extend their corporate brands into banking." More concerning may be that some of these firms are generating a level of trust previously reserved only for traditional banks and credit unions.