Willis Towers Watson has appointed Thorsten Querfurt as the companys new Global Industry Leader for Natural Resources. Querfurt will be responsible for leading the companys growth efforts in Natural Resources, which comprises three principal sectors: oil, gas and chemicals, metals and mining, and power and utilities (including renewable energy and nuclear). Querfurt joins from Oliver Wyman, where he spent four years as a partner in its Energy Practice, leading global client accounts, Energy Practice, developing new business, advising clients in the areas of operational risk and safety and managing global teams. Prior to that he spent ten years as a Director with Corven Consulting, a privately owned management consultancy, focused on business transformation in the energy sector. While at Corven he helped grow the practice for acquisition and led a series of consultancy initiatives for Oil & Gas, Manufacturing and Electricity clients.

If you're seeking color inspiration from a distinctive-looking film like Grand Budapest Hotel, you could just "eyedrop" it in Photoshop or try an app like Adobe Color CC. He came up with Colormind, an AI algorithm that uses films, video games, fashion and art to "generate color suggestions that fit the distinct visual style of those mediums," he says. In coming up with his system, Qiao writes that he first looked at so-called color quantization (MMCQ), in which algorithms extract representative colors from images. However, those colors are often "haphazard" and not very useful for design, unlike human palettes that feature "similar hues grouped together ... and some minimum amount of contrast between each other," he says. To find a balance between the two, Qiao thought about using a fancy adversarial network deep-learning system, but instead "settled on a brute-force technique that I call generative-MMCQ."

In 2011, the Finnish company ZenRobotics was first on the waste management scene with their robotic waste sorter. Their system used a combination of computer vision, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) to run synchronized robotic arms to sort and pick recycled materials from moving conveyor belts. The company broke ground with recycling stations that were tied together in a neural network and the AI learned, from real-time feeds providing data from metal sensors, 3D laser cameras and spectroscopic cameras, to select and sort the right items from the belt. Sadako Technologies has been working on an AI-infused garbage sorting systems on a smaller scale than Zen Robotics. The company also uses proprietary algorithms that connect to a multi-layer neural network system which lives in the cloud.

Although we enjoy a good sci-fi movie now and then, for Scyfer artificial intelligence isn't quite Terminator's Skynet or Rick Deckard's replicants. It's the intelligent software that helps humans do their jobs better, thus making their work more meaningful. It's technology that learns with the input of humans and can significantly impact the world, from better disease detection to creating smart cities to improving quality assessment in the industry. Want to work with some of the best Artificial Intelligence specialists in Europe and help shed light on their stories? We're looking for an intern that will demonstrate a creative approach to developing unique angles and new story ideas around AI.

Here's some good news for the day: life expectancy is continuing to increase, and shows no sign of slowing down. More people than ever before are reaching the milestone of 100 years of age. In fact if the Queen is still sending out telegrams to centenarians, she will soon need an industrial size mail house to keep up with demand! Sure, there are pockets around the world – called bluezones – where the prevailing lifestyles have seen concentrations of the world's oldest people. These zones include Sardinia in Italy and Okinawa in Japan, with research suggesting climate, diet and family structures have helped driven this phenomena.

Former 500 Startups accelerator company Pluto AI is announcing $2.1 million in fundraising today from Fall Line Capital, Refactor Capital, Unshackled Ventures, Comet Labs and additional angels. Pluto is taking advantage of the sensorification of modern water treatment plants to extrapolate insights that can save operators precious time, money and water. The Pluto analytics platform presents managers with a dashboard that quantifies the status of all assets at a given water treatment plant. These ratings, ranging from 0 to 100, take into account temperature and pressure readings in addition to other data from pumps and chlorinators to identify cause and effect relationships. Machine learning is the backbone behind Pluto's ability to ingest large quantities of unstructured data, but the end user isn't forced to get into the weeds of individual models to gain a better understanding of how plant assets are working in consonance. Utilizing historical data, Pluto can directly recommend steps to improve the functioning of plant infrastructure.

Scientists have developed a self-healing material that could be used for smartphone screens as soon as 2020. This wouldn't be the first time we've seen so-called "self-healing" technology used in smartphones. The LG G Flex 2, which came out in 2015, features a "self-healing" back panel that's claimed to repair "everyday scratches" in ten seconds. 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.

The Commander of the US Air Force's Air Mobility Command wants to develop "Star Trek" electronic cloaking technologies to protect military aircraft. General Carlton Everhart has called for Silicon Valley technology companies, specialists at the Pentagon's new innovation office and the wider defense industry to build something capable of altering a plane's radar image, to either hide it completely or trick the system into thinking it's in an entirely different location. One of Air Mobility Command's responsibilities is refuelling US armed forces aircraft in mid-air. General Everhart says he'd like to see both brand new and bulkier, first-generation Air Mobility Command aircraft receive the treatment, which he believes will have the dual-benefit of also keeping fighter jets hidden from enemies. 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.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the world wide web, has given a series of interviews in which he has criticised how the internet has developed, condemned how advertising has evolved and warned of the risks that global connectivity poses to users' privacy. In an interview with The Guardian, Sir Tim said that the Trump administration's decision to allow internet service providers to sign away their customers' privacy and sell users' browsing habits is "disgusting" and "appalling". The problem with the internet, he said, is that it can be "ridiculously revealing". "You have the right to go to a doctor in privacy where it's just between you and the doctor. And similarly, you have to be able to go to the web."

Amazon has agreed to refund $70 million worth of in-app purchases made by children without their parents' knowledge or authorisation. The company was taken to court by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) back in 2014 for failing to clearly inform parents that apps that are free to download from its app store can still allow in-app purchases. A US federal judge ruled in the FTC's favour, and Amazon appealed the decision last year. The firm was found to have failed to provide enough protective measures to prevent Amazon device users from unwittingly spending money. 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.