I love to visit Machine Learning meetups organized in Madrid (Spain) and I'm a regular attendant to Tensorflow Madrid and Machine Learning Spain groups. At least I was until the begining of the Self-Driving Car course, but that is another story. The fact is that too often, during "pizza & beer" time or networking I heard people talking about Deep Learning. Sentences like "where should I begin? Tensorflow is the most popular, isn't it?",

Government launches new consultation on drone safety. The government plans to introduce new measures to ensure the successful uptake of drones is matched by strong safeguards to protect the public. The consultation will also consider whether there is a need for a new criminal offence for misuse of drones. The government is determined to make the most of this emerging technology, estimated to be worth around £102 billion by 2025. But ministers are clear it will only be a success if it is done safely, and with the consent of the public.

There have been some alarming reports recently about the possibility of artificial intelligence leaving half of the world potentially unemployed. Recent research shows that within 30 years, robots will be in a position to perform almost all jobs that are held by humans right now. A recent detailed study from the Martin Oxford School has speculated that approximately 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk of automation. As there may be some truth in this report, it is not likely that half of the world's jobs will be taken by machines in 30 years. Additionally, some of the jobs facing the risk of automation might not be automated because of technical, societal and economical reasons.

The first is a shortage of doctors and nurses - there simply aren't enough to meet demand. Data from a BBC Freedom of Information request shows that between 2013 and 2015, there has been a 50% increase in nursing vacancies, rising from 12,513 to 18,714. Meanwhile, the number of nursing vacancies across England, Wales and Northern Ireland reached 23,443 by the end of December - equivalent to 9% of the workforce. In comparison, the average vacancy rate across the UK economy was 2.7%. With a lack of qualified staff, the system struggles under demand, and a backlog develops.

Has Tesla succeeded in creating a vehicle that reacts faster than its driver? A recently-surfaced dashcam video appears to show Tesla's autopilot mode predicting an accident moments before it actually happens. It currently takes hours to charge an electric car - but Elon Musk just hinted that Tesla's next-gen superchargers will be able to juice up an eve in mere seconds. Musk also confirmed plans for a new Tesla Roadster, which is expected to debut in 2019. Uber recently launched a fleet of self-driving cars in California, but the state promptly shut the experiment down.

Most of the important archaeological sites in Central America were "discovered" by archaeologists who, in fact, didn't discover them at all but were led to the ruins by local people. I've known several Maya archaeologists who routinely started fieldwork in a new area by heading into a dive bar and hoisting beers with the locals while listening to various bullshitters spin tales about ruins they'd seen in the jungle; once in a while, a story would turn out to be true. But, because these sites were long known to local people, they had invariably been disturbed, if not badly looted. The revelation of an ancient city in a valley in the Mosquitia mountains, of Honduras, one of the last scientifically unexplored regions on Earth, was a different story. This was the first time a large archaeological site had been discovered in a purely speculative search using a technology called LIDAR, or "light detection and ranging," which can map terrain through the thickest jungle foliage, an event I chronicled in a story for the magazine in 2013.

There's a new era of social self-expression and mobile entertainment happening, enabled by always-on cameras, real-time computer vision, social media, and other tech. Several of these phenomena -- from emoji to stickers to filters to cultural memes -- emerged in Asia or were popularized in messaging apps there before they made their way into global products. Well, livestreaming is currently exploding in China. And while it's been around in the U.S. for years in various forms, it hasn't really taken off at mainstream scale… yet. So what can we learn as livestreaming evolves in China (and perhaps here too)?

The next BriefingsDirect technology innovation thought leadership discussion explores how rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are poised to reshape procurement -- like a fast-forwarding to a once-fanciful vision of the future. Whereas George Jetson of the 1960s cartoon portrayed a world of household robots, flying cars, and push-button corporate jobs -- the 2017 procurement landscape has its own impressive retinue of decision bots, automated processes, and data-driven insights. We won't need to wait long for this vision of futuristic business to arrive. As we enter 2017, applied intelligence derived from entirely new data analysis benefits has redefined productivity and provided business leaders with unprecedented tools for managing procurement, supply chains, and continuity risks. To learn more about the future of predictive -- and even proactive -- procurement technologies, please welcome Chris Haydon, Chief Strategy Officer at SAP Ariba. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Gardner: It seems like only yesterday that we were content to gain a common view of the customer or develop an end-to-end bead on a single business process.

This year was a mixed bag for startups. Powa Technologies, an e-commerce company that was one of Britain's so-called unicorns (a startup valued at over $1bn), crashed hard, declaring bankruptcy early in 2016. US wearables company Pebble sold to Fitbit for less than a 10th of its peak valuation. But on the plus side, Europe minted – foaled? But for some startups, the year ahead is nothing but hopeful.

A new website claims to be able to show everything you – and your friends – have torrented. "I Know What You Download" gathers information frm across the internet to find out the things that people have been downloading. And it even provides an easy way for friends to make that information available, too – meaning that you may already have been tricked into exposing your torrenting habits. The tool works simply by looking up the IP address of the person using it. While torrents might feel secret, unless they are protected they are attached to those same unique IP addresses – meaning that anyone looking to find a download can be identified by others doing so at the same time.