Two important requirements when aggregating the preferences of multiple agents are that the outcome should be economically efficient and the aggregation mechanism should not be manipulable. In this paper, we provide a computer-aided proof of a sweeping impossibility using these two conditions for randomized aggregation mechanisms. More precisely, we show that every efficient aggregation mechanism can be manipulated for all expected utility representations of the agents' preferences. This settles an open problem and strengthens a number of existing theorems, including statements that were shown within the special domain of assignment. Our proof is obtained by formulating the claim as a satisfiability problem over predicates from real-valued arithmetic, which is then checked using an SMT (satisfiability modulo theories) solver. In order to verify the correctness of the result, a minimal unsatisfiable set of constraints returned by the SMT solver was translated back into a proof in higher-order logic, which was automatically verified by an interactive theorem prover. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of SMT solvers in computational social choice.

Fire fighters rescued a woman who got trapped in a window while she attempted to retrieve feces she allegedly tossed out of her Tinder date's window, according to reports. She apparently tried to discard the feces after it failed to flush down the toilet. Liam Smith from Bristol, England started an online fundraising page to cover the damages his date allegedly caused to his apartment window. The two apparently met through the dating app Tinder and had retired back to Smith's apartment after a trip to a local restaurant, according to Smith's fundraising page. Local firefighting squad Avon Fire and Rescue confirmed to local newspaper Bristol Post that they received a call on Aug. 7 to Smith's address.

From virtual assistants to driverless cars, technology imitating human intelligence is on the rise. But at what ethical cost and how do boards future-proof their organisations in the face of rapid change? Earlier this year, a Japanese insurance company made headlines for doing something that company executives and directors around the world have been anticipating - and fearing - for years. Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance made 34 of its staff redundant and replaced them with artificial intelligence (AI) system IBM Watson. Japanese newspaper The Mainichi reported the company will be using Watson to determine payout amounts and check customer cases against their insurance contracts. Other Japanese insurance companies have announced they are looking at or are already using AI for similar purposes and The Japan Times reported in April that the country's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry was planning to trial AI to help government workers write draft answers for questions put to Cabinet ministers.

The next event in the Effective Applications of the R Language (EARL) conference series takes place next week, with EARL London 2017. The EARL conference series got its start in London, and the London event remains the biggest and brightest of the venues. This year's program is no exception, with an impressive raft of tutorials and keynote speakers, and three full tracks of contributed talks focusing on real-world applications of R. Here are a few highlights you might want to check out. From the Monday tutorial sessions, Jenny Bryan's session on Writing R Functions for Fun and Profit promises to be a great session for budding R programmers looking to take their R skills to the next level.

Tomorrow's digital interface may be even more revolutionary than the pinching, tapping and scrolling heralded by the smartphone: voice commands promise to unify and tame our digital lives. Tiny speakers visible at every stand at Berlin's IFA electronics fair, most of them endowed with a feminine voice, are the ears and mouths of the new artificial intelligences. Things haven't quite reached the fever pitch of 2013's "Her", Spike Jonze's film in which Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson. But industry experts and salespeople paint a glowing picture of a future home in which an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered butler will cater to consumers' every need via networked appliances. "This technology is about to play a huge role in our lives. The main question for manufacturers is what technical solution will make it as intuitive as possible," said Martin Boerner, vice-president of Germany's information technology industry federation Bitkom.

Without a doubt, 2016 was the year'disruption' became tangible. Events like Brexit, the U.S. election and India's demonetization exercise brought home the reality we are living in a fast-changing global society where a sense of anti-establishment and rebellion is accelerating change. This shows no sign of stopping in 2017, with new technologies allowing banks to offer service levels more synonymous with hospitality than financial services, and with established technologies like artificial intelligence and robotic process automation seeing a resurgence in combination with new voice commerce models, IoT data, and robo advisors to offer more personal, more contextual and ultimately unique banking experiences for each and every one of us. In meeting with decision-making executives from the U.S to Europe, the Middle East, India and Singapore, I have compiled a clear list of trends that are dominating technology investment discussions across the globe's leading banks. In 2016 we already saw several leaders' like DBS, Santander, Wells Fargo and Bank of America roll out their chatbots, but 2017 is the year when the rebirth of this very old technology will come into its own.

French President Emmanuel Macron has made fighting Islamist militants his primary foreign policy objective and the move to armed drones fits into a more aggressive policy at a time when it looks increasingly unlikely Paris will be able to withdraw from the region in the medium to long-term.

With just one week to go before Apple finally unveils its highly anticipated iPhone 8, a video has emerged on Reddit that claims to show the device. It comes after months of rumours about Apple's next smartphone, ranging from an all-screen display to a 3D facial recognition sensor. The short clip appears to confirm several rumours, including a near-edgeless display and virtual home button. The video of the alleged device was posted on Reddit this week by a user called horryshiet, along with the caption'Alleged working iPhone 8.' It shows small bezels and a cutout space at the top that will feature the front-facing camera and speaker. Techradar notes the cutout at the top of the display doesn't look to be symmetrical suggesting it may be a fake Several people in the Reddit thread have also questioned the video.

We live in an increasingly data-driven society, in which information is becoming as much of a currency as money. Many consumers use free services from internet giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple, for example, and in return allow these corporations to track and monetise their online behaviour. One of the biggest questions of the day is the openness of such transactions, and the level of control that individuals have over the fate of the personal information they -- sometimes unwittingly -- divulge to organisations with which they interact online. Recent votes on both sides of the Atlantic have highlighted the capacity for data-savvy organisations to hoover up and profile large amounts of user data -- including demographics, consumer behaviour and internet activity -- in order to micro-target adverts, news stories and services in support of particular goals or causes. Clearly, the data floodgates are now opening for businesses of all sizes and descriptions, bringing myriad opportunities for timely analysis in pursuit of competitive advantage.

Florence Parly said Tuesday in a speech in the southeastern city of Toulon that "armed drones will have endurance, discretion, surveillance and strike capability at the right place and the right moment."