The latest artificial-intelligence techniques are being adopted by companies at a blistering pace. Before long, hackers might start taking a closer look, too, and they could cause all sorts of trouble by tricking these systems with illusory data. Speaking at a recent AI conference in Barcelona, Spain, Ian Goodfellow, a research scientist at OpenAI who has done pioneering work on deceiving machine-learning systems, said attacking the systems is easy. "Almost anything bad you can think of doing to a machine-learning model can be done right now," he said. "And defending it is really, really hard."

From Amazon and Facebook to Google and Microsoft, leaders of the world's most influential technology firms are highlighting their enthusiasm for Artificial Intelligence (AI). While there is growing interest in AI, the field is understood mainly by specialists. Our goal for this primer is to make this important field accessible to a broader audience. We'll begin by explaining the meaning of'AI' and key terms including'machine learning'. We'll illustrate how one of the most productive areas of AI, called'deep learning', works.

Year 1999, The Matrix introduced your neighbor, your dad, and pretty much every hacky-sacking college kid in the country to the idea that the real world around us … might not be so real. In the film, our trenchcoated protagonist Neo discovers that the world as he knows it is only an illusion, piped into his brain while his body sits submerged in a gooey chemical broth. The idea that we are not really here at all -- that life is just an illusion – is as old as Plato's Allegory of the Cave. But The Matrix had that special sauce that made this mind-bending concept palatable to high schoolers shuffling around in JNCO jeans: guns, Keanu Reeves, and a soundtrack anchored by Rage Against the Machine. "Entering the Matrix" became pop-culture shorthand for the notion that technology could eventually deliver us from our mind-numbing reality and allow us to live in a faux universe of our own creation. Want to learn kung fu in seconds? Just take the red pill. A kid born in 1999 is just now old enough to rent the R-rated Matrix -- or more likely, stream it. Yet in those intervening 17 years, entering the Matrix has gone from a dystopian sci-fi dream to a waking reality. These days, a pair of $800 goggles can convince you to duck as dinosaurs shamble over you, drop the pit of your stomach as you peer off the ledge of an artificial skyscraper, and make you puke -- in real life -- after one too many loops in a computer-generated space fighter. And yup, you can freeze time and stop bullets, too.

If you need some last-minute gift ideas, don't worry -- we've got your back. Issues in the news include Uber ending its self-driving car tests in San Francisco, a Nokia vs. Apple patent battle and an early look at Sling TV's AirTV player. It's pretty bad when the DMV has the moral high groundUber shuts down its self-driving cars in San Francisco After a week or so of posturing, the battle between California regulators and Uber has come to an end. The ride-sharing company pulled 16 self-driving cars off the road after the DMV revoked their registrations, insisting that Uber needs to obtain an autonomous permit for testing. According to the state, getting the permit (as 20 other companies already have, including Google, Tesla and Ford) could take less than 72 hours.

From mid-2017, expertise currently distributed across several different locations will be pooled in Unterschleissheim. 'In order to succeed, we are establishing new forms of collaboration under'project i 2.0', with small teams of specialists for rapid response and collaboration across the company, as well as a high level of individual decision-making authority,' explains Frohlich. The new work structures will be characterised by agile teams, short distances - and, above all, short decision-making processes. At the new campus, software developers will be able to take the code they have just written across the way for testing in an actual vehicle. 'We are combining the advantages of a start-up, such as flexibility and speed, with those of an established company, like process security and industrialisation expertise,' adds the Development head.

Carrefour, the French supermarket giant whose name translates to "intersection," is building a new service capability to support its broad omnichannel strategy. The company is rolling out modern apps, such as one that makes it easier for consumers to shop using mobile devices and pick up their groceries without having to leave their cars--or their homes, for that matter. It's also adding modern capabilities that help customer service agents provide more efficient assistance, whether consumers are reaching out via email, web chat, or phone. These types of capabilities are growing in importance. Some 54% of consumers expect "promotions and offerings that are more relevant to me," and 25% are looking for a "more personalized experience," according to a survey by consulting firm Morar, conducted on behalf of Oracle.

A computer's ability to accurately identify images is a white whale for many technology companies, from Baidu to Google. One Australian startup has found a corner of the market to dominate, winning contracts with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and IP Australia for algorithms that can detect and compare logos. SEE ALSO: Airbnb is getting into the airline booking disruption game with'Flights' TrademarkVision, which has support from Australia's CEA Startup Fund, uses machine learning to support image searches that can identify similar trademarks. Having a unique trademark or logo is vital, but many intellectual property registration bodies often require outdated forms of non-visual search that make comparison difficult. Australia, for example, relies on keywords, Europe on Vienna codes and the U.S. on design codes.

Together with Microsoft we think we can experience the full potential of Aifloo's ground-breaking technique for real-time AI analysis, says Michael Collaros, CEO at Aifloo. The challenges with highly increasing healthcare costs due to population growth – the number of people in the EU aged 65 and over are set to double by 2050 – creates a need for innovative and disruptive solutions. One savior could be personal technologies such as mobile phones, apps, wearables and personal computers, which have the potential to dramatically improve health results. Combined with artificial intelligence, these technologies may digitally transform the healthcare sector. If Stockholm and Sweden want to be at the forefront of e-health we need to highlight and help innovative companies with interesting ideas to scale to a global market, says Mathias Ekman, responsible for business development in healthcare at Microsoft.

WASHINGTON – Millions of dollars' worth of U.S.-supplied drones that Kiev had hoped would help in its war against Russian-backed separatists have proven ineffective against jamming and hacking, Ukrainian officials say. The 72 Raven RQ-11B Analog mini-drones were so disappointing following their arrival this summer that Natan Chazin, an advisor to Ukraine's military with deep knowledge of the country's drone program, said if it were up to him, he would return them. "From the beginning, it was the wrong decision to use these drones in our (conflict)," Chazin, an adviser to the chief of the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces, told Reuters. The hand-launched Ravens were one of the recent highlights of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, aiming to give Kiev's military portable, light-weight, unarmed surveillance drones that were small enough to be used widely in the field. They are made by AeroVironment.

Will technology at last help us to feel richer in 2017? The prevailing concern for several years now has been that despite rising GDP most people are not feeling any richer, and some people attribute the success of populist politicians to this sense of resentment. But we will hear a lot more about the clutch of technologies that potentially can transform our living standards, and accordingly give a practical response to populism by showing that things can and will get better. The core set of these technologies goes under the umbrella term Artificial Intelligence. The New York Times Magazine has just run a piece by Gideon Lewis-Kraus, under the title "The Great A.I. Awakening", which sums up what is happening.