Seen from a drone's eye view, the enormous earthmoving trucks, buses and tractors criss-crossing this corner of Somerset look like toy town models. The vehicles are dwarfed by their surroundings at Hinkley Point, where new footage has revealed the full scale of the site being prepared for Britain's first new nuclear power station in a generation.

A drone flew within 20 metres of a plane on the approach to Heathrow, while another shocked pilots by appearing at 3,000 metres (10,000ft), a monthly update on near-misses has revealed. Commercial jet pilots reported two "category A" incidents, the most serious class of near-miss, involving unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), known as drones. The latest report comes amid concern that drone near-misses are on the rise, potentially posing a threat to recreational and commercial planes. In one case, an Airbus A320 pilot on the approach to Heathrow in October last year spotted a drone within just 20 metres, or "possibly within the wingspan" of the aircraft. Investigators concluded that the drone had flown so close to the passenger jet that "providence had played a major part in the aircraft not colliding".

We frequently hear about Machine Learning in the media, especially since the recent wave of interest in deep-learning. The perpetual improvement of Machine Learning techniques combined with the ever increasing amount of data that are stored suggests endless new applications. Many innovative solutions emerge: autonomous driving, next generation supermarkets with implicit payment, next generation chatbots that can interact with you as human beings would do, and so on. More than ever, the future seems within reach. But the more extravagant and original the application is, the more the layman is put off.

Use our LinkedIn Login to download this post to PDF or save it to MyLibrary! Everyone has been hearing about AI, some have been hearing about NLP - and everyone has an opinion, belief, or thought about AI. However, that opinion, belief, or thought about AI (and/or NLP) is fully dependent upon the voices of whom everyone has chosen to listen. We are at a stage in our rate of change of technology where we have to let go of how we learned things in the past -- and step into a new stage of keeping ourselves always available to learn, no matter what we believe and/or think. We cannot, more than ever before, solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them (said Albert Einstein nearly 100 years ago!).

Fears of robot automation muscling humans out of jobs have grown exponentially as automated technology has evolved, especially in the manufacturing industry. But General Electrics CEO Jeff Immelt claims that robots won't steal human jobs any time soon. Immelt, 61, states that the idea of robots stealing human jobs is'more of a Silicon Valley vision than the real world.' The comments are likely to stir controversy as General Electrics, with more than 300,000 employees worldwide, has already invested billions in automation. General Electrics CEO Jeff Immelt (pictured) claims that robots won't steal human jobs any time soon.

'This is nice, it tickles me,' Kaspar the social robot tells four-year-old Finn as they play together at an autism school north of London. Kaspar, developed by the University of Hertfordshire, also sings song, imitates eating, plays the tambourine and combs his hair during their sessions aimed at helping Finn with his social interaction and communication. If Finn gets too rough, the similarly sized Kaspar cries: 'Ouch, that hurt me.' A therapist is on hand to encourage the child to rectify his behaviour by tickling the robot's feet. Finn is one of around 170 autistic children that Kaspar has helped in a handful of schools and hospitals over the last 10 years.

Inside the chests of 41 million people around the world, failing hearts gradually become less effective at the vital task of pumping blood. Some heart failure patients get on the list for a transplant, while others receive metallic pumps called ventricular assist devices (VADs) to help their faltering organs. But VADs increase the risk of blood clots, which can form as the liquid flows over surfaces made of metal and plastic. In search of a better pumping assistant, an international team of researchers invented a silicone sleeve that slips over the heart's exterior, thus keeping the robot from contact with flowing blood as it rhythmically squeezes the organ. The sleeve's design is inspired by the arrangement of real heart muscles, with an inner layer of material that contracts using concentric rings and an outer layer that contracts in a helical fashion.

Kaspar, a humanoid robot designed to help children with autism, is set to be trialled by the NHS. The child-sized robot was created by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire and is programmed to respond to touch. Kaspar is designed to play games with children, using a collection of skin sensors placed on various parts of its body to "encourage certain tactile behaviours" and discourage "inappropriate" ones. It will be used to teach five-to-ten year-olds who have recently been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) how to socialise and communicate. This is because research indicates that early intervention increases the likelihood of improved long-term outcomes for children with the condition.

Washington DC - Two journalists who say they have been targeted by the United States have filed a complaint against the American government, accusing it of putting them on a "kill list" and demanding to be taken off it. The complaint was filed in the US District Court of the District of Columbia on Thursday on behalf of Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan - a dual Pakistani-Syrian citizen who works for Al Jazeera and Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American who has freelanced for Al Jazeera. It accuses the US government of using information gathered via its Skynet surveillance programme, which has been used to guide drone strikes on "terror suspects". The plaintiffs accuse the United States of conspiracy to commit murder outside its borders and violating international law on targeting civilians. Filed by UK-based rights group Reprieve and the Washington DC-based law firm Lewis Baach, the complaint asks the court to declare the journalists' inclusion on the list illegal, and issue an injunction removing their names until they can review the secret evidence against them.

Artificial intelligence has come a long way in the 20 years since International Business Machines Corp.'s Deep Blue beat world champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game chess match, or even the six years since Watson trounced Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! Computers have beaten top human players at checkers, backgammon, poker, and go. Add to the list Super Smash Bros. Melee, a 2001 Nintendo Co. fighting game that lets you pit, say, Mario against Pikachu. Humanity has MIT researchers to thank for this defeat, chronicled in a paper they published in February, but Melee isn't the only video game getting a lot of playtime from learning machines. AI software has cracked Super Mario Bros.; early Atari SA games such as Space Invaders; arcade mainstays Pac-Man and Mortal Kombat; even mobile favorite Angry Birds.