With the growth of artificial intelligence, the fears of many have started to become a reality as jobs start falling to the machines. Many technologists and government officials will see the emergence of the digital era as a chance to score political points through job creation, however one has to ask whether the scale of the challenge is appreciated. For Dik Vos, CEO at SQS, the rapid evolution to the connected economy could see as many as 30% of the population being made redundant and in need to retraining. "The real impact will be seen in five to seven years but already in 2017 there will be greater disruption to the community and more jobs taken over by software," said Vos in an interview with Telecoms.com. "There will be a huge group of people who will be caught out when the rate of development goes much faster than we anticipated."

Millennials have spoken, and they know what they want in their kitchens. According to young designers, the kitchen of the future should be a gathering place for people and their pets, with natural surfaces, a place for composting, and fresh cereal always on tap. And if they don't feel like cooking? A robot should be able to deliver pizza and fresh beer straight to the living room. Those are the findings of a survey of 18-29 year olds who participated in a kitchen design study held by two German universities.

Japanese toilet manufacturers have agreed to standardise the iconography used on toilet controls, in an attempt to make them more tourist-friendly. Japan's high-tech loos have long been a source of fascination for westerners, thanks to their mind-boggling range of features. However, the tendency for manufacturers to use completely different symbols for the same functions has proved a sticking point for non-Japanese speakers, who are only ever an uninformed button push away from assaulting their delicate parts with a powerful jet of fluid. 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.

Julian Assange will not hand himself in despite a promise to do so if Chelsea Manning was granted clemency, according to one of his lawyers. WikiLeaks had pledged in a tweet that its founder would agree to be extradited to the US if Barack Obama granted clemency to Ms Manning, which he did in the final hours of his presidency. Mr Assange's lawyers initially seemed to suggest that promise would be carried through – telling reporters that he stood by his earlier comments – but it appears now that Mr Assange will stay inside the embassy. The commitment to accept extradition to the US was based on Ms Manning being released immediately, Mr Assange's lawyer told The Hill. Ms Manning won't actually be released until May – to allow for a standard 120-day transition period, which gives people time to prepare and find somewhere to live, an official told The New York Times for its original report about Ms Manning's clemency.

Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) has become a topic of considerable interest over the past year. A recent KDnuggets blog competition focused on this topic, resulting in a handful of interesting ideas and projects. Several AutoML tools have been generating notable interest and gaining respect and notoriety in this time frame as well. This post will provide a brief explanation of AutoML, argue for its justification and adoption, present a pair of contemporary tools for its pursuit, and discuss AutoML's anticipated future and direction. We can talk about what automated machine learning is, and we can talk about what automated machine learning is not. AutoML is not automated data science.

Imagine you're behind the wheel when your brakes fail. As you speed toward a crowded crosswalk, you're confronted with an impossible choice: veer right and mow down a large group of elderly people, or veer left into a woman pushing a stroller. Now imagine you're riding in the back of a self-driving car. The site shows players a series of 13 scenarios, highlighting two possible actions. It reveals the number of people killed by each option, including their background. Other options include saving or sacrificing dogs, pedestrians and nearby homeless people.

At the Detroit Auto Show last week, Volkswagen hoped to escape the present with a nod to the past, introducing a revamped version of its iconic flat-faced, boxy Microbus, the vehicle that shepherded the counterculture across the interstates some five decades ago. The bus's reincarnation is a battery-propelled, self-driving vehicle called ID Buzz. But nostalgic wing-vent windows and chrome trim could not distract from the company's current predicament. Barely had the auto show kicked off when the Justice Department announced that VW had pleaded guilty to criminal and civil charges related to its efforts to cheat on U.S. emissions standards. The company agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties, the largest fine ever levied by the U.S. government on an auto company, dwarfing both Toyota's $1.2-billion settlement for vehicle-safety problems involving unintended acceleration and GM's nine-hundred-million-dollar settlement for ignition-switch defects.

An app meant to make people more "beautiful" is taking over people's phones and feeds. The Meitu app has been around for years. But it is surging in popularity as people brighten up their skin, turn their eyes huge and perform other makeovers on themselves. The app claims to be a "one touch photoshop for enhancing your beauty and putting the finishing touches on your photos", and the results are dramatic. Any picture can be plugged into it and the app will recognise its users' face and then perform changes to it.

While machine learning itself is nothing new, the speed at which data can now be processed, analyzed and actioned has completely changed the machine-learning game. Readily affordable computing power, the quantity of data available, and algorithms we never thought we could use are now possible. Though the fundamental concept remains the same, machine-learning is now far more sophisticated, efficient and easily deployable – and the potential it offers to revolutionize customer experience is truly exciting. Gary Vaynerchuk was so impressed with TNW Conference 2016 he paused mid-talk to applaud us. Harnessing machine learning allows businesses to revolutionize the way we all engage with their store or use their service.

Artificial intelligence can predict better than real doctors when patients with serious heart disorders are likely to die. That's according to a paper published this week in Radiology. A team of medics and computer scientists, led by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) at Imperial College London, created what is claimed to be the first computer program that uses machine learning to study heart disease. Pulmonary hypertension, a condition that increases the level of pressure exerted on the arteries that supply oxygen to the lungs, is dangerous if left untreated. It affects up to 7,000 people in the UK, and a third of patients die of heart failure within five years of diagnosis.