In another example of glacial bureaucracy, a committee from the European Parliament has written a report which recommends a meeting about robots and artificial intelligence (AI), reports Jamie Davies at Telecoms.com The Legal Affairs Committee has produced a report that strongly urges the European Commission (hereafter known as the Gaggle of Red-tapers) to create legislation and regulation to govern the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence. It suggests the Gaggle of Red-tapers creates a new department to "to supply public authorities with technical, ethical and regulatory expertise". The Legal Affairs Committee set up this working group to look into artificial intelligence in April 2016, and it would appear this report is the result of ten months' hard work. It took 21 MEP's, two of whom abstained from voting alongside two who rejected the proposals in the report (for some reason), ten months to come to the conclusion it should recommend the European Commission should regulate the development of artificial intelligence.

Nintendo will start selling its new Switch console from 3 March, it has revealed. The new system – Nintendo's first since the Wii U, which was mostly seen as a failure – was revealed at the end of last year. Its primary selling point is that it can alternate between being used at home with a TV and anywhere else, with the "Switch" in its name referring to the fact that it can be disconnected and used on its own. The console will be released with games featuring a range of well-known characters from Nintendo's universe, as well as third party games like Fifa and Minecraft. The next instalment in the popular Legend Of Zelda series, Breath Of The Wild was also revealed as a launch title for the system, as was Super Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. 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.

Nintendo's new Switch gaming console is off to an underwhelming start. The new machine, a tablet-sized device with wireless controllers that can be used anywhere but also connects to TVs, will go on sale 3 March at a price of $300 in the US and £279.99 in the UK, with a brand-new Zelda game as its launch title. None of that, however, was enough to convince investors that it will be a big moneymaker for the Kyoto-based company, whose shares fell 5.8 perc ent to 23,750 yen (£169.96) after Nintendo executives held a presentation in Tokyo on Friday. Nintendo is counting on the Switch to end years of pain at its console division, which released a successor to the popular Wii in 2012 that flopped. After shunning the smartphone market for years, its long-awaited foray into mobile gaming got off to a rough start, with last month's disappointing debut of Super Mario Run.

In this Amsterdam Data Science Deep Dive session we will highlight cutting-edge research with a focus on Machine Learning with speakers from academia and industry. There will be an opportunity for audience participation and interaction to discuss the key challenges within this domain. Amsterdam Data Science accelerates data science research by connecting, sharing and showcasing world-class technology, expertise and talent from Amsterdam on a regional, national and international level. Our research enables business and society to better gather, store, analyse and present data in order to gain valuable insights and make informed decisions.

While digital health doesn't have as big of a presence at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as other industries, there were a fair number of wearables, apps and sensor-enabled tools showcased. There were also several partnerships announced, which you can read about here. Some have already been covered in MobiHealthNews yet didn't make their official debuts til this week, but most were new announcements to the world. Here is a list of 31 digital health tools we've rounded up from CES. Fitness gear company Polar, which has historically been known for its heartrate-monitoring watches and chest straps, unveiled its new product: a smart clothing item called the Polar Team Pro Shirt. The sleeveless base layer shirt is embedded with heart rate-monitoring sensors that contact the wearer's skin, eliminating the need for a chest strap or wristworn band.

In November last year The Memo revealed Babylon's plans to move from AI-powered triage towards diagnosis and eventually to AI-powered prescriptions. "[AI-powered triage is] something that a few years ago people would have said was impossible to get a machine to do, now we're doing it with thousands of patients every single day," said CEO and founder, Dr Ali Parsa. "In two or three years, realistically I can't see how a human being can diagnose better than a machine." For the new NHS app that already seems like it might be the case, the health service claims someone can get advice from the app 12 times faster than a phone call to 111. After answering a few questions the app filters through thousands of possibilities, searching through the symptoms of every known illness, to give you advice on which over-the-counter medication might help or whether you should visit your GP.

A few months into my time as an insurance claims adjuster, a customer called and said he thought his house was breaking apart. He'd heard what sounded like wood beams snapping in the basement, so he went downstairs and crept into the crawl space to investigate. While he was lying in the dark surrounded by cement, he told me, he started to panic. It brought him back to years earlier when, as a firefighter with the New York City Fire Department, he served as a first responder on September 11, crawling through the giant blocks of brick and mortar that had collapsed hours earlier. This revelation came 10 or 15 minutes into our conversation, after I'd gathered his basic information and logged the details of the case.

It could double economic growth rates in developed countries, writes Accenture's CTO. Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be the single most disruptive technology the world has seen since the Industrial Revolution. Granted, there is a lot of hype out there on AI, along with doomsday headlines and scary movies. But the reality is that it will positively and materially change how we engage with the world around us. It's going to improve not only how business is done, but the kind of work we do – and unleash new levels of creativity and ingenuity.

Berkeley robotics professor Ken Goldberg is turning an empty coffee mug around and around in his hands. "Oh, it's so complicated for a robot to be able to make sense of that kind of data," he says, eyeing his fingers grasping the cup with a look of wonder. Artificial intelligence is taking on complex cognitive tasks, such as assisting in legal and medical research, but a manual job like picking up laundry off the floor is still science fiction. Universities like Berkeley and Cornell and companies like Amazon and Toyota are working to close the gap with mechanical hands that approach human dexterity. Success would unleash a new robotics revolution with positive effects like reducing household drudgework, and fraught effects such as eliminating jobs in places like warehouses. Machines have been taking over manual labor for centuries; but they've been limited to specific, predictable tasks, as in factories.

From the Game Boy to the Wii, Nintendo has created some of the world's most memorable games consoles. Some were big hits, but others have been big misses. Ahead of the release of its next games machine, the Nintendo Switch, these are the main devices that have brought players the likes of Super Mario, Tetris, Zelda and Pokemon. The Game & Watch was Nintendo's first breakout video game success. Its inspiration came when developer Gunpei Yokoi saw a bored businessman punch buttons on a calculator to amuse himself on a train, says Katharine Byrne, news editor at video games publication MCV.