Animals can't tell us when they're in pain, so owners and veterinarians have to rely on other cues to help treat animals in discomfort. But determining that amount of pain might have just gotten easier: Researchers at the University of Cambridge used facial recognition software to figure out the amount of pain a sheep is in simply by looking at it. When a sheep is hurting, it makes certain predictable facial expressions. It's so reliable, in fact, that scientists recently introduced the Sheep Pain Facial Expression Scale (SPFES) to easily determine the amount of pain a sheep feels. However, training humans to read these facial expressions and tics is time consuming; that's where the computer comes in.

The next big thing in the technology world is artificial intelligence (AI). Big tech organisations like Apple and Google are aggressively investing in AI. Google has been partnering Oxford University to expand Artificial Intelligence. Some examples of everyday AI include iPhone Siri and Microsoft Windows 10 Cortana. Before going further, it will not be out of place to define AI.

Consumers are still mixed about Siri, but according to an exclusive new poll for USA TODAY, they like her more than other personal assistants. LOS ANGELES -- "Siri, will you finally catch up to Amazon and Google this year? We'd like to believe she might say, "Yes...Jefferson. I'll have more accurate, chattier responses, and good news -- I'll be able to understand you much better, too." Apple, which introduced the world to voice-activated computing in 2011 with the release of Siri, is feeling the heat. The tech press has given raves to the superior results from Google's Assistant, now available on the iPhone. It's also been wowed by the constant drumbeat generated by Amazon for its Alexa assistant, coming to new speakers and other devices on an ongoing basis. So on the eve of the Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple touts all the cool new things app makers get to do in 2017 with software updates, the company is expected to once again put the spotlight on a newer, improved Siri, ...

We're only a few months into 2017 and cyber attacks seem to be hitting the headlines even more regularly than last year. In the same week, it was announced that cyber breaches have cost UK companies £42m since 2013. The week before that, it was revealed that Chinese hackers had been carrying out sustained cyber attacks for three years across the globe. As a result of this boom in cyber crime, startups and companies across the world are harnessing new ways to handle the sophisticated attacks and spending is thought to be around $106.1bn in 2017, according to research by IDC. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are just two types of technology that are fighting cyber breaches on the front line.

Translating design into code can be tedious and not particularly thought-provoking--which also happens to be the criteria that makes a task ripe for automation. The Copenhagen-based startup UIzard Technologies is already on it: The company has trained a neural network to take a screenshot of a graphic interface and translate it into lines of code, effectively eliminating that part of the web design process for developers. Impressively, the same model works across iOS, Android, and web-based interfaces, and at this early point in the research the algorithm works with 77% accuracy. Last week, Tony Beltramelli, the founder and CEO of UIzard Technologies published a research paper on how the model, called Pix2Code works. The gist is this: Like all machine learning, the researchers had to train the model on examples of the task at hand.

The rise of neural networks and deep learning is correlated with increased computational power introduced by general purpose GPUs. The reason is that the optimisation problems being solved to train a complex statistical model, are demanding and the computational resources available are crucial to the final solution. Using a conventional CPU, one could spend weeks of waiting for a simple neural network to be trained. This problem is amplified when one is trying to spawn multiple experiments to select optimal parameters of a model. Having computational resources such as a high-end GPU is an important aspect when one begins to experiment with deep learning models as this allows a rapid gain in practical experience.

The impact that AI and automation will have on our job market and economy has been steadily debated for the last few years, with the story constantly changing. With AI advancing at such a fast clip, it's time to get to the bottom of the AI automation issue. AI is already impacting multiple industries in different ways, but what does that look like? Artificial Intelligence is changing the world and doing it at breakneck speed. A recent study conducted at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford has surveyed the world's leading researchers in artificial intelligence by asking them when they think intelligent machines will better humans in a wide range of tasks.

Recent weeks have brought controversy over electronic billboards in restaurants and shopping precincts that utilize advanced facial recognition techniques to not only provide personalized advertisements but also measure and record the consumer and their response, ostensibly to enable retailers to provide more targeted marketing and services. In Oslo, the restaurant Peppe's Pizza had its usage of such billboards exposed due to a crashed digital advertisement that revealed the coding behind its facial recognition system. The billboard includes a camera and facial recognition software that can register gender, whether the watcher is young or an adult, facial expression, whether they wear glasses. In response, Dublin-based designer Youssef Sarhan did a little digging in his home time of Dublin and also discovered similar billboards in operation. "Your attention (and the meta-data associated with it) is being relayed to advertisers without your permission or awareness, and there is no way to opt–out. This is the crux of the problem. There's no transparency, there is no obvious notice, and there's no way to opt–out. This is an erosion of our privacy. I feel this is unacceptable."

There is no denying the fact that Artificial Intelligence is the breakthrough technology of recent times. The machines have come a long way from assisting humans in mechanical operations to performing smarter tasks using cognitive intelligence. Every day, we are coming across interesting applications of AI. The ability of Deep Learning algorithms to learn and predict efficiently has opened the doors of possibilities. Nowadays, AI is impacting many other areas as well. In this blog post, we will discuss some niche applications of AI.

Those who mistakenly thought 2016 was an anomaly, a series of unprecedented events, should have few remaining doubts. Marine Le Pen may have stuttered but still picked up almost 11 million votes. Her opponent, the "normal" candidate, was leader of a party only one year old. The ongoing terror attacks, fake news panic, Trump's tweets and James Comey: last year never really ended, it just carried straight on into this one. After decades of exaggerated prediction, the internet is finally transforming politics, but not in the way the digital prophets expected. The 90s, you may recall, were awash with optimism about our online future: limitless information and total connection would make us more informed, less bigoted and kinder citizens. But the internet is an overwhelming mess of competing facts, claims, blogs, data, propaganda, misinformation, investigative journalism, charts, different charts, commentary and reportage.