According to Gartner, over 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human by 2020. We have seen a machine master the complex game of Go, previously thought to be the most difficult challenge of artificial processing. We have witnessed vehicles operating autonomously, including a caravan of trucks crossing Europe with only a single operator to monitor systems. We have seen a proliferation of robotic counterparts and automated means for accomplishing a variety of tasks and all of this has given rise to a flurry of people claiming that the Artificial Intelligence revolution is already upon us. However, while there is no doubt that there have been significant advancements in the field of AI, what we have seen is only a start on the path to what could be considered full AI.

While modern Bluetooth earpieces are more compact than ever, chances are you'll still need to leave at least one stuck in your ear. This can get uncomfortable over time, not to mention the dorkiness that's been haunting this form factor since day one. Hong Kong startup Origami Labs thinks it has an alternative solution to this problem: why not repackage the Bluetooth earpiece as a ring, and then use bone conduction to transmit audio to the fingertip? Using bone conduction for audio transmission is hardly a new idea. It's a commonly used technology in the hearing aid market, as this transmits sound directly to the inner ear, thus bypassing hearing issues caused by the middle or outer ear.

There is no 16-clue Sudoku: Solving the Sudoku minimum number of clues problem via hitting set enumeration.

Alan Turing is often praised as the foremost figure in the historical process that led to the rise of the modern electronic computer. Particular attention has been devoted to the purported connection between a "Universal Turing Machine" (UTM), as introduced in Turing's article of 1936,27 and the design and implementation in the mid-1940s of the first stored-program computers, with particular emphasis on the respective proposals of John von Neumann for the EDVAC30 and of Turing himself for the ACE.26 In some recent accounts, von Neumann's and Turing's proposals (and the machines built on them) are unambiguously described as direct implementations of a UTM, as defined in 1936. "What Turing described in 1936 was not an abstract mathematical notion but a solid three-dimensional machine (containing, as he said, wheels, levers, and paper tape); and the cardinal problem in electronic computing's pioneering years, taken on by both'Proposed Electronic Calculator' and the'First Draft' was just this: How best to build a practical electronic form of the UTM?"9 "[The] essential point of the stored-program computer is that it is built to implement a logical idea, Turing's idea: the universal Turing machine of 1936."18 This statement is of particular interest because, in his authoritative biography21 of Turing (first published 1983), Hodges typically follows a much more nuanced and careful approach to this entire issue. For instance, when referring to a mocking 1936 comment by David Champernowne, a friend of Turing, to the effect that the universal machine would require the Albert Hall to house its construction, Hodges commented that this "was fair comment on Alan's design in'Computable Numbers' for if he had any thoughts of making it a practical proposition they did not show in the paper."21 "Did [Turing] think in terms of constructing a universal machine at this stage? There is not a shred of direct evidence, nor was the design as described in his paper in any way influenced by practical considerations ... My own belief is that the'interest' [in building an actual machine] may have been at the back of his mind all the time after 1936, and quite possibly motivated some of his eagerness to learn about engineering techniques. But as he never said or wrote anything to this effect, the question must be left to tantalize the imagination."21 Discussions of this issue tend to be based on retrospective accounts, sometimes even on hearsay. The most-often quoted one comes from Max Newman, who had been Turing's teacher and mentor back in the early Cambridge days and, later, became a leading figure in the rise of the modern electronic computer, sometimes collaborating with Turing. "The description that [Turing] gave of a'universal' computing machine was entirely theoretical in purpose, but Turing's strong interest in all kinds of practical experiment made him even then interested in the possibility of actually constructing a machine on these lines."6

A viral video of gel beads bouncing and squealing in a hot frying pan has led to the discovery that hydrogels slapping against a hot surface can generate substantial kinetic energy. This could one day give a power boost to bots made of such materials. Scott Waitukaitis at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands was inspired by a YouTube video showing balls of water-saturated polyacrylimide gel shrieking when they hit the skillet's hot surface, and leaping up and down as if the pan were a trampoline. To find out why this was happening, Waitukaitis and his colleagues soaked hydrogel beads, often used in flower arranging, until they were about 99 per cent water by weight and dropped them onto pans heated to 215 C from heights ranging from a few hundred micrometres to 20 centimetres. If the balls were dropped from less than 4 centimetres, they seemed to defy gravity by bouncing higher and higher with every leap until they reached that height, where they bounced stably for several minutes.

The concept of a self-parking car certainly isn't new, but Daimler is about to take the next logical step on that front. It's partnering with Bosch to launch an Automated Valet Parking service at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. When it launches at the start of 2018, anyone (not just museum guests) can rent cars that will not only drive themselves out, but park themselves upon return. You just need a smartphone app to both make the reservation and the virtual handover when you're done. The key is the combination of Mercedes' self-driving tech with Bosch's smart car park grid.

Kodi addons can secretly be used to spy on users, the project manager of the foundation says. They can collect and share information such as your IP address and usage habits without you realising, and feed it back to organisations like anti-piracy groups. Though authorities have tried to turn people away from piracy with repeated warnings, they've admitted that it can be tough to work out who is using Kodi for legal purposes and who is using it for illegal purposes. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Imagery taken by Google's Street View team is being turned into amazing artistic landscape photography, using an experimental piece of AI software. Experts from the firm have used machine learning to train its Creatism software to scour pictures of impressive views from around the world, which it then alters using visual effects. Many of the breathtaking panoramas that result from the process appear as if they have been captured by professional photographers. But can you spot the difference between the machine generated snaps and the pictures taken by people? Take a look at the images below and visit the bottom of the page to find out which is which.

Aditya Challa, IMImobile: choose the right technology and use AI wisely! Aditya Challa of IMImobile takes a look at some current and future applications of artificial intelligence (AI) for customer experience in the financial and banking sector, as well as the challenges that still need to be overcome. Beyond the current race to build chatbots, he predicts that voice-driven AI services will ultimately become the main interface between banks and their customers. When four out of five bankers agree on something it's worth taking notice. According to Accenture's Banking Technology Vision 2017 report, that's how many think AI will revolutionise how they interact with their clients and collect information.

Over the last few years, the domain of cloud computing has proliferated. Cloud platforms are enabling new, complex business models and orchestrating more globally-based integration networks. Amazon Web Services is a $12B business, with Microsoft & Google right behind. Even industries that traditionally follow On-Prem model (Government, Financial Services, Telecom etc.) are increasingly moving some of their services and solutions to cloud. However, Security Concerns continue to plague the industry.