The notion of a technological singularity brought about by advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has entertained academics, inventors, futurists, and journalists since the concept was first coined around the middle of the last century. The singularity posits that, at some point in the near or distant future, we humans will create AI that outsmarts us, leading to all sorts of unhappy results for our kind. Depending on whether you prefer utopian or dystopian science fiction, the singularity will either be absolutely fabulous or downright horrifying. Mathemetician and science-fiction writer Vernor Vinge is thought to have coined the term "the singularity." Vinge's view in this 1993 essay is decidedly dystopian: "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."

It has long been claimed that women are better at multi-tasking than men. While some women relish the accolade, others suspect some males use it as an excuse for avoiding work. Now scientists have found strong proof that men are inferior at juggling two activities - at least compared to women under 60. Men asked to carry out complex thinking while walking on a treadmill without handrails were found to stop swinging their right arm while they walk. But women under 60 – described as'pre-menopausal' – were'surprisingly' not affected with both arms swung freely as before.

Netflix has rolled out a significant update to its Android app, allowing users to store downloads on their microSD cards. After months of desperate speculation, Netflix users gained the ability to save TV shows and films for offline viewing towards the end of last year, but there was one downside: users could only save content to their device's onboard storage. That placed a tight restriction on how much content users could download. 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.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 will launch in late March before becoming available for purchase in April, according to a new report. The company recently confirmed that its next flagship handset would not make an appearance at Mobile World Congress next month, and the Guardian, citing "well placed sources", now claims that it will go on sale "on or around" 21 April. The report also claims that users will be able to turn the S8 into an Android-running desktop computer by hooking it up to a dock, monitor and keyboard, with a new feature called desktop extension (DeX). Expected to work in a similar manner to Microsoft's Continuum, Samsung will likely use DeX to push the S8 as a bona fide business device, potentially adding a few extra pounds to its price tag in the process. 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.

A spokeswoman for the airport in northern Germany said they had to cancel all air traffic Wednesday morning for about 30 minutes, but that starting from 8:56 a.m. EST), parts of the airport were working again.

Technology in the so-called Smart Machine Age, which includes AI, virtual reality and robotics, will bring huge changes not just in headcount, but also in how people innovate and collaborate. That will require new approaches to how people think, listen and relate, says Edward D. Hess, a professor of business administration at the University of Virginia. In the "Smart Age" now evolving, ego has no place. Instead, the focus will need to be on the quality of ideas, accuracy, emotional intelligence and mindfulness. Hess writes about these issues in the just-released book he co-authored with Katherine Ludwig, titled Humility is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age. Hess discussed his ideas on the Knowledge@Wharton show on Wharton Business Radio, SiriusXM channel 111.

The Banking and Finance sector (BFSI) is witnessing one of its most interesting and enriching phases. Apart from the evident shift from traditional methods of banking and payments, technology has started playing a vital role in defining this change. Mobile apps, plastic money, e-wallets and bots have aided the phenomenal swing from offline payments to online payments over the last two decades. Now, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in BFSI is expediting the evolution of this industry. AI enables a computer to behave and take decisions like a human being.

DAVOS, Switzerland: Open markets and global trade have been blamed for job losses over the last decade, but global CEOs say the real culprits are increasingly machines. And while business leaders gathered at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos relish the productivity gains technology can bring, they warned this week that the collateral damage to jobs needs to be addressed more seriously. From taxi drivers to health care professionals, technologies such as robotics, driverless cars, artificial intelligence and 3-D printing mean more and more types of jobs are at risk. Adidas, for example, aims to use 3-D printing in the manufacture of some running shoes. "Jobs will be lost, jobs will evolve and this revolution is going to be ageless, it is going to be classless and it is going to affect everyone," said Meg Whitman, chief executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Over 1,000 attendees, 50 speakers and 30 exhibitors; this is a brief summary of what I was lucky enough to take part in during the first AI Europe 2016 conference held in London on the 5 and 6 December. The attendee list boasted the biggest names from the world of artificial intelligence such as Microsoft, Dell, Uber, Samsung and Nvidia, as well as several innovative start-ups, the likes of Blippar and DreamQuark whose innovations are based on machine or deep learning models. Even if we can say with a degree of certainty that further advances in artificial intelligence are yet to come, leading players are in agreement that most AI techniques and technologies are now well-advanced. Therefore, their major preoccupation today is more about the quality of the data sets being used to train and validate their machine and deep learning models. Whether it's Dell or Uber, Microsoft or Blippar, they all have one thing in common: they all agree on the fact that as of now, the quality of the data used in AI for machine learning is of the utmost importance.

There have been numerous examples over the last two decades of how Natural Language Processing, or NLP, is being used by companies to provide an intelligent voice to gadgets and searches. Think, for instance, how the world of search engines--from Yahoo, Microsoft and Google--have changed the Internet with text-based search algorithms driving and augmenting the World Wide Web. NLP, though, does much more than just that and text analytics. NLP exploration on our current digital planet includes voice searches on automobiles and then, of course, the dictation mechanics of the software world. I have an 18-month-old who thrives on YouTube searches asking for'Peppa Pig' or'Mickey Mouse' series while my 5-year-old is exploring the world of content on YouTube (of course, with restricted parental control)--from watching the world of KungFu Panda to how to make dummy videos.