O2 has announced plans to introduce an AI capable of performing the same job as customer service staff. The voice recognition system, which is called Aura, was unveiled by the mobile operator's parent company Telefonica at MWC this week. It's expected to launch in the UK next year, and will enable the company to cut customer service costs. 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. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

According to the Telegraph, an average driver wastes a total of 2,549 hours looking for parking. That's 106 days of wasted time. Now, those are statistics in the UK, but I bet that drivers in the US living in metro areas waste just as much -- if not more -- time looking for parking. Last week, Google quietly launched a new parking feature for Google Maps on Android across 25 major US cities. If you are in these metro areas, you will now see a red parking sign that indicates limited parking availability to help you plan your trip.

Spencer Kelly tells me that he can't stop talking, which is a handy skill to have for a television presenter. In fact, this trait is why he put aside the career path expected of a computer science graduate from Cambridge University and joined radio. He started off at a local station in the UK, as a traffic presenter and moved on to hosting the station's breakfast show. Kelly says the early 2000s were a good time for British radio, though the years since have seen the medium become formulaic. "It was innovative and people were constantly trying new things. As companies start to understand what works and what doesn't, there is greater control over what music is played and what people say."

When it comes to public cloud-based IoT platforms, Amazon and Microsoft have fierce competition from an unexpected corner – IBM. While the company hasn't seen much traction with SoftLayer (IaaS), and Bluemix (PaaS), it's upping the ante on IoT and Cognitive Computing. IBM Watson is slowly but steadily gaining customer adoption. From Visa to BMW to Bosch to Kone, Watson now boasts of some impressive partnerships. IBM recently hosted a two-day briefing at its newly minted IoT facility in Munich.

BARCELONA, SPAIN and REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 27, 2017) - MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS - Aricent, a global design and engineering company, today announced the launch of Cognitive Services to enhance customer engagement and brand loyalty in a digital era. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is top of mind today for most business leaders who seek to provide unique value around their products and services for a truly compelling customer experience. AI is a wide ranging category containing many capabilities including Natural Language Processing, Natural Language Understanding, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Computer Vision. However, launching successful products and services powered by AI is challenging. As per Gartner Research report titled Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2017*, "Significant investment in skills, process and tools is needed to successfully exploit these techniques in terms of setup, integration, algorithm/approach selection, data preparation and model creation."

Dronescapes is a collection of vibrant, mystical paintings of drones by Australian artist Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox. In a conversation with the Center for the Study of the Drone, the artist shares the meaning of her work, explains her use of traditional Australian motifs, and shares her views on the rise of autonomous technology. The Federal Aviation Administration released a new set of reports of airspace incidents involving drones, including close encounters with manned aircraft and drone use over airports. The dataset includes 1,274 reported incidents that occurred between February and September 2016, around 400 more than occurred during the same period in 2015. At the National Interest, Elsa Kania argues that China could soon overtake the U.S. in the development of autonomous drones.

The UK government is going to lead a "major review" into what artificial intelligence means for the country's economy as part of its long-awaited Digital Strategy. Officials at the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) say its review will look at how the government and firms can work together to "back the technology" in the coming years. It is claimed, based on figures from Accenture, that AI could add £654 billion to the UK's economy by 2035. While research from the think tank Reform has suggested 250,000 public sector jobs administration jobs could be replaced by chat bots, artificial intelligence, and automation by 2030. The review will be led by the University of Southampton's computer science professor Wendy Hall and Jerome Pesenti from BenevolentAI.

A mother was on the phone, crying. She could not contain her gratitude: her son had just been accepted to university thanks, in part, to a new startup called SchoolApply. "We really want to open up the world for students," says Daniel Bjarne, CEO and Co-Founder of SchoolApply, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and search functionality to help students from anywhere in the world connect with educational programs abroad that best match their needs and potential. Demand for such a service is growing fast. By 2025, some eight million students are expected to have to travel to other countries to study.

The pledge is part of the government's digital strategy, which will be set out by the culture secretary Karen Bradley on Wednesday. According to the department, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is expected to give a funding boost of £17.3m to support the development of new robotics and artificial intelligence technologies in universities across the UK. Moreover, the government will also launch a major independent review to examine how it can work together with the artificial intelligence sector. Bradley said, "We are already pioneers in today's artificial intelligence revolution and the digital strategy will build on our strengths to make sure UK-based scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs continue to be at the forefront." Research carried out by Accenture found that artificial intelligence could add in the region of £654bn to the UK economy by 2035.

Most of us can guess the name of a stranger with up to 40 per cent accuracy, a study has found. This is because people grow to look more like their name, subconsciously changing their hairstyles, putting on weight, smiling or frowning. For example, society generally expects men called Bob to have rounder faces than those called Tim, because the word looks round. Can you beat the researchers' computer algorithm top score of 64 per cent accuracy in matching the names of strangers to their faces? Each correct match is worth 16.6 per cent.