Two decades ago I started working on metrics of machine intelligence. By that time, during the glacial days of the second AI winter, few were really interested in measuring something that AI lacked completely. And very few, such as David L. Dowe and I, were interested in metrics of intelligence linked to algorithmic information theory, where the models of interaction between an agent and the world were sequences of bits, and intelligence was formulated using Solomonoff's and Wallace's theories of inductive inference. In the meantime, seemingly dozens of variants of the Turing test were proposed every year, the CAPTCHAs were introduced and David showed how easy it is to solve some IQ tests using a very simple program based on a big-switch approach. And, today, a new AI spring has arrived, triggered by a blossoming machine learning field, bringing a more experimental approach to AI with an increasing number of AI benchmarks and competitions (see a previous entry in this blog for a survey).

Call of Duty: WWII brings the multibillion-dollar video game franchise full circle. While the most recent editions of Activision's series have been set in futuristic settings, this new blockbuster release ( just out, $59 and up, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PCs, ages 17-up) plants you in a platoon fighting its way across Europe in World War II. Like the more than a dozen previous Call of Duty games, Call of Duty: WWII is a first-person shooter. So you get to line up Nazis in your gun sights on Normandy beach, within occupied France and in Germany. Playing out like the Band of Brothers miniseries, COD: WWII takes players on an action-packed history lesson through the last year of fighting in the European theater.

The phone rings and you pick up an unsolicited call from a friend of a friend, who is, in this case, representing a venture capital fund that has identified your business as a potential candidate for Series A finance. The business has been growing fast and more capital is required. And while you haven't as yet gone public with your intention, a Series A round is definitely on the agenda. You talk for a while and agree to take the discussions further. So when the conversation ends do you: a) call in the other founders and collectively punch the air, or b) wonder how on earth you managed to get on the radar screen of an interested VC that was hitherto outside your network?

AI experts have put together a seven-minute film that depicts a terrifying future where tiny killer drones are programmed to carry out mass killings. Made by an advocacy group called Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the footage shows palm-sized drones armed with explosives finding and attacking people without human supervision. These tiny drones can kill with ruthless efficiency and campaigners warn a preemptive ban on the technology is needed to stop a new era of horrific mass destruction. In the film, machines can can spot activists in lecture halls and kill them by propelling an explosive into their head. The video starts with a developer introducing the new technology, saying these drones can react 100 times faster than a human. He says these drones have wide field cameras, face recognition, special sensors and shaped explosives.

From deep gorges to the elusive northern lights, new drone footage shows the mesmerising beauty of Iceland. A team of filmmakers trekked across the volcano-ridden country to capture a range of unique landscapes from the air, earlier this year. Now, in a five-minute long video titled The North Awakens, viewers are taken on a breathtaking flight, soaring above icy glaciers and rugged cliffsides. A team of filmmakers trekked across Iceland to capture a range of unique landscapes from the air. Soundtracked with music by Peter Nanasi, the project was a joint collaboration by film-maker Jonathan Besler, Kevin May and Florian Gampert.

The impending era of driverless rides could prove disruptive for traditional modes of public transport. But, Germany's state-owned railway company thinks it has a solution, and it sounds like a lot of fun -- especially for gamers. It just unveiled plans for a new train complete with a digital coach that packs TVs and game consoles. Deutsche Bahn's "Ideenzug" ("Idea Train") will also boast gym equipment and a play area for kids. The railway firm envisions the project as a way to keep pace with, and even overtake, self-driving cars.

Today, a Chinese manufacturer and a venture backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will announce plans to commercialize a microscope that uses deep learning algorithms to automatically identify and count malaria parasites in a blood smear within 20 minutes. AI-powered microscopes could speed up diagnosis and standardize detection of malaria at a time when the mosquito-borne disease kills almost half a million people per year. An experimental version of the AI-powered microscope has already shown that it can detect malaria parasites well enough to meet the highest World Health Organization microscopy standard, known as competence level 1. That rating means that it performs on par with well-trained microscopists, although the researchers note that some expert microscopists can still outperform the automated system. That previous research, presented at the International Conference on Computer Vision [pdf] in October, has inspired the Global Good Fund--a partnership between the company Intellectual Ventures and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation--and a Chinese microscope manufacturer called Motic to take the next big commercialization step.

Machine learning startup Graphcore Ltd. has raised $50 million in new funding in a round led by Sequoia Capital, according to news published Sunday but not yet confirmed by the company itself. It's also not clear what the valuation was on the deal. A report from Bloomberg Nov. 3 said that the company had been chasing a valuation of $1 billion but "wasn't able to reach that height." Founded in 2016, United Kingdom-based Graphcore is building "intelligence processing units," chips that are specifically designed to assist programmers in creating machine learning computer systems that can be used in fields such as with autonomous cars or medical detection devices. The company claims its IPU accelerators and Poplar software framework deliver "the fastest and most flexible platform for current and future machine intelligence applications, lowering the cost of AI in the cloud and datacenter, improving performance and efficiency by between 10x to 100x."

While the Genius of Things event in Boston is over, I'm still pondering. There are so many interesting ways that our customers are using Watson IoT to change the way we live and work. In addition to the great speakers, there were also some very impressive technology demonstrations that our partners and colleagues brought to the event. We did, when we stopped by to chat with the Persistent team. Persistent has been a leader in developing humanoid robots with Watson IoT.

Achyut Jajoo: I began as an engineer working in automotive, but then began developing CRM technology products for manufacturing customers. Over the course of my career, I've worked with large global manufacturing organizations to help them with their customer experience and digital technology vision, plans, and with their overall execution of that vision. I spend a significant amount of time talking with C-level suites of these manufacturing companies about digital transformation, the opportunities and challenges ahead for the industry, and how can they leverage CRM technologies to occupy leadership positions in their business. IW: Salesforce isn't the first name that comes to mind for most manufacturers. How are you staying relevant?