Autonomous vehicles with no human backup will be put to the test on publicly traveled French roads as early as next year in what may be the first attempt at unassisted autonomous piloting. Automotive electronics and parts maker Delphi and French transport company Transdev plan to use autonomous taxis and a shuttle van to carry passengers on roadways in France. The companies on Wednesday said they plan to combine Delphi's self-driving technology with Transdev's knowledge of mobility operations. This is where the issue often occurs, as the rules aren't clear as to who is responsible if a crash occurs. Despite this, insurers such as RSA have accepted applications from some driverless car companies.

Many vendors like Cisco and Intel are proponents of Edge Processing (also called Edge computing). The main idea behind Edge Computing is to push processing away from the core and towards the Edge of the network. For IoT, that means pushing processing towards the sensors or a gateway. This enables data to be initially processed at the Edge device possibly enabling smaller datasets sent to the core. Devices at the Edge may not be continuously connected to the network.

That chatbots are emerging faster than ever is an undeniable fact. Since 2016, chatbots have becoming increasingly more common, largely owing to the fact that major messaging platforms have embraced them. Chatbot developers and related startups are heralding the dawn of a new era but many remain unconvinced. A number of people are also concerned about the impact of the rising chatbots on the jobs market. Is this really a war?

Global banks that have a large mortgage business are facing pressure internally and externally to upgrade their operating model to save money, decrease processing times and enhance the customer experience – today it can take more than 60 days to complete a mortgage transaction. The pressure is particularly strong with FinTechs like US online lender Rocket Mortgage and UK digital mortgage broker Trussle creating a completely digital experience for prospective home buyers. Banks, therefore, are exploring everything from mature technologies like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to more leading edge and high-tech solutions based on blockchain and artificial intelligence. While some of these solutions could dramatically impact day-to-day business for lenders and their brokers and customers, blockchain has the potential to completely transform the entire mortgage financing industry. The financial services industry is all about trust – whether relationship based, reputational, authoritative (legal) or transactional – banking today is built on trust.

If you have ever been on a ship, you might have realized navigation is the most technical and the most important part of sailing -- a slight error in calculation might literally sink you. And such errors, in the past, have been caused mostly by humans. Japan has found a unique solution to the problem -- self-navigating ships. These "smart ships" will find the safest, shortest and most fuel-efficient routes using artificial intelligence (AI) and could be put into service by 2025. The AI tech is expected to make shipping safer by not just potting the course, but also detecting machinery malfunctions and other problems way in advance.

Microsoft announced yesterday that it will be opening its third IoT & AI (Internet of Things and artificial intelligence) Insiders Lab. The new lab, located in Munich, Germany is set to open in April and will provide an EMEA point of presence to round out the existing labs in the Americas (Redmond, Wash.) and Asia (Shenzhen, China). AI has become one of the great, meaningless buzzwords of our time. In this video, the Chief Data Scientist of Dun and Bradstreet explains AI in clear business terms. Mission possible The mission of the labs is to provide facilities and expertise to startups in the IoT and AI arenas. The labs offer facilities that include a laser cutter, a reflow oven and 3D printers, along with staff sporting expertise in IoT hardware, embedded systems software, cloud engineering, and, of course, IoT, machine learning, and AI.

The Digital Republic Bill recently gave a unique assignment to the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) which is to lead a reflection on the ethical and societal matters raised by the rapid development of digital technologies. While algorithms are frequently at play in our everyday lives, only 31% of French people believe that they know precisely what it is all about*: the CNIL thus made the decision to open up in 2017 a large public debate on algorithms and artificial intelligence. Public institutions, associations, companies, research centers: around 40 partners take action to give body to this large and open public debate. Some of the partners of the wide public debate facilitated by the CNIL have favored a sector-based approach according to each of their fields of expertise. The outcomes of the growing use of algorithms will be analyzed for the justice system and the legal profession through several initiatives.

Just as we learn from our mistakes, they are--well, learning from our mistakes too. A database of Atari Gameplay was unleashed to show AI what's what with game play. Tech sites are talking about this Atari Grand Challenge dataset--worthy of attention as the dataset, said Dan Robitzski in Inverse, gives AI systems access to new ways of learning and honing skills over time. The researchers stated in their paper that "We collect and describe a large dataset of human Atari 2600 replays – the largest and most diverse such data set publicly released to date." Jordan Pearson, Motherboard: "Computer scientists from RWTH Aachen University in Germany and Microsoft Research have released the largest-ever database of human playthroughs for some of the most popular games for the Atari 2600."

Artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted technologies have been on the rise over the past few years. From virtual personal assistants to video games, smart cars, online customer support, and music or movie recommendations, AI has infiltrated nearly every aspect of consumers' everyday lives. Yes, we can all thank AI for our Netflix addiction. While AI certainly makes consumers' lives easier, it's also working in nearly every industry to help streamline operations. One company that saw significant improvement in its sales thanks to AI was Dole Asia.

It has emerged that a US hedge-fund billionaire who helped finance Donald Trump's presidential campaign reportedly played a key role in the campaign for Britain to leave the European union. Robert Mercer, co-owner of news organisation Breitbart allegedly directed his data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica to provide expert advice to Britain's Leave campaign. Cambridge Analytica, an offshoot of British company SCL Group, uses'cutting-edge technology' to build what it calls intimate psychometric profiles of voters to find and target their emotional triggers. The company has 25 years' experience in military and election management campaigns. This Sunday (26/02), it was revealed that the Mercer introduced the firm to Leave campaigner and former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.