On Sept. 16, 2007, a Japanese YouTuber who goes by the handle "Computing Aesthetic" uploaded a forty-eight-second-long video with the deafening title, "ULTRA MEGA SUPER LUCKY SHOT." The video shows a high-scoring shot in Peggle, a vastly popular video game, loosely based on Japanese pachinko machines, in which a ball-bearing clatters down the screen, accruing points as it bounces through a crowd of candy-colored pegs, which disappear shortly after being touched; more bounces, more points. Although Peggle involves some skill--before firing the ball, the player must carefully aim the launcher that dangles at the top of the screen--you are principally at the mercy of the luck of the bounce. In Computing Aesthetic's footage, the points pile up as the ball bounces fortuitously between pegs. To underscore the seemingly miraculous shot, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" blares euphorically until, in the video's final moments, the ball-bearing sinks into the bucket at the base of the screen and the words "FEVER SCORE" flash onscreen.

Lloyds Banking group's online customers have expressed frustration after a second day of problems with online and app banking. An outage on Wednesday morning prevented customers from logging into their accounts. At one point the group, which includes Lloyds Bank, the Halifax and Bank of Scotland, assured customers that the glitch had been resolved. However, complaints from customers continued on Twitter on Thursday. A spokesperson for Lloyds confirmed the banks were still experiencing "intermittent issues" and were investigating what caused the glitch.

The unstoppable rise of robots in our everyday lives requires urgent EU rules including fitting machines with'kill switches', European Parliament members have warned. A draft report passed by an EU committee today also proposes granting legal status to robots, categorising them as'electronic persons'. MEPs passed the resolution urging Brussels to take action on automaton ethics, as the role of robots in everyday life becomes more and more significant. The warning has echoes of science fiction, such as the Terminator franchise of films, where robots take on humans. MEPs have warned that robots need to be fitted with'kill switches' to prevent a Terminator-style uprising against humans Mady Delvaux, a Socialist MEP from Luxembourg, led the campaign and warned that Europe is passively standing by as robots take an increasingly powerful role that will turn even stronger with the emergence of driverless cars.

This post is part of an ongoing blog series examining "Sure Things" (predictions that are almost guaranteed to happen) and "Long Shots" (predictions that are less likely to happen) in cybersecurity in 2017. In the last few years, the digital footprint of organizations has expanded beyond the confines of the on-premise data center and private cloud to a model that now incorporates SaaS and public clouds. To date, InfoSec teams have been in a reactive mode while trying to implement a comprehensive security strategy across their hybrid architecture. In 2017, we will see a concerted effort from InfoSec teams to build and roll out a multi-cloud security strategy geared toward addressing the emerging digital needs of their organizations. Maintaining a consistent security posture, pervasive visibility, and ease of security management across all clouds will drive security teams to extend their strategy beyond security considerations for public and private clouds and also focus on securely enabling SaaS applications.

How would you feel about getting therapy from a robot? Emotionally intelligent machines may not be as far away as it seems. Over the last few decades, artificial intelligence (AI) have got increasingly good at reading emotional reactions in humans. But reading is not the same as understanding. If AI cannot experience emotions themselves, can they ever truly understand us? And, if not, is there a risk that we ascribe robots properties they don't have?

MEPs have called for the adoption of comprehensive rules for how humans will interact with artificial intelligence and robots. The report makes it clear that it believes the world is on the cusp of a "new industrial" robot revolution. It looks at whether to give robots legal status as "electronic persons". Designers should make sure any robots have a kill switch, which would allow functions to be shut down if necessary, the report recommends. Meanwhile users should be able to use robots "without risk or fear of physical or psychological harm", it states. Lorna Brazell, a partner at law firm Osborne Clarke, was surprised by how far-reaching the rules were.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2015 file photo, Sahara, a rare red-haired female Hamadryas Baboon holds 3 weeks old dark-furred baby in the Ramat Gan Safari Park near Tel Aviv, Israel. A new study in France shows that baboons can make human-like vowel sounds, and its authors say the discovery could help scientists better understand the evolution of human speech. The study was published in the journal Plos One on Wednesday Jan. 11, 2017 by a team of scientists. FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2015 file photo, Sahara, a rare red-haired female Hamadryas Baboon holds 3 weeks old dark-furred baby in the Ramat Gan Safari Park near Tel Aviv, Israel. A new study in France shows that baboons can make human-like vowel sounds, and its authors say the discovery could help scientists better understand the evolution of human speech.

Cyclists have to be wary of everything in big cities, even robotic cars. To help its sharing-service users, Citi Bike in New York is outfitting 250 bicycles with "Laserlight" safety lights from UK company Blaze. They project a bright green bicycle outline 20 feet ahead, effectively giving you a personal bike lane symbol. That helps alert motorists, pedestrians and other cyclists of your presence 30 percent more often than without them, Blaze says. According to the New York Post, the 250 lights are just a pilot program, due to end mid-March.

Like many tech companies, IBM is starting the new year by making a few predictions. One of them has to do with a software concept they call a "macroscope," a software technology that can be used to analyze the complexities of the physical world. IBM predicts that within five years, such technology will "help us understand the Earth's complexity in infinite detail." Hyperbole aside, the goal is to better manage world's resources and commercial endeavors that use those resources by applying machine learning algorithms across an array of data sources. That includes geospatial data (weather, soil, water, etc.) as well as data about economic, social and political conditions.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. How would you feel about getting therapy from a robot? Emotionally intelligent machines may not be as far away as it seems. Over the last few decades, artificial intelligence (AI) has got increasingly good at reading emotional reactions in humans. But reading is not the same as understanding. If AI cannot experience emotions themselves, can they ever truly understand us?