Stuttgart, Germany – Germany is getting its first Cyber Valley: to drive forward research in Baden-Württemberg on artificial intelligence, Bosch and partners from politics, business, and science are pooling their strengths in a new initiative. Modeled after Silicon Valley, Cyber Valley's aim is to translate findings from basic research into concrete industrial applications. "Machine learning and artificial intelligence are key competencies in shaping the connected world," said Bosch CEO Dr. Volkmar Denner at the Cyber Valley kickoff in Stuttgart. "In the international competition for innovation, Germany should not sit back and allow major IT companies from abroad to dominate these areas." Bosch is supporting the Cyber Valley venture to the tune of some seven million euros.

Over the summer, I spent a month at Stugan, a Swedish "game development acceleration camp". That may sound like a faintly sinister concept, but it was in fact stupidly idyllic. The eight-week event, organised by alumni from game publishers Rovio and King, took place in adorable red wooden cabins perched on a hill overlooking a lake – apparently called "Bjursen", although we just called it The Lake, because we couldn't pronounce anything correctly. While not working on our game development projects, we watched meteor showers from a nearby mountaintop, swam beneath the Northern Lights, and sat around a campfire getting sloshed on schnapps. The Stugan attendees were from all over the world, but we'd ended up in this tiny corner of Scandinavia, brought together by the one thing we shared: the desire to create and play video games. I turned up three weeks late, and already an outsider as the only journalist, but within a few days I felt like I'd been welcomed as one of the team.

The commonest questions about data science are to do with getting started. I have even found myself vacillating between these two states -- and to limit the sense of panic and doom that normally accompanies this statelessness, I maintain a list of resources that contain instructional material which achieves a healthy tradeoff between the two states. In other words, these are resources that help you learn machine learning and its underlying disciplines, as well as the nuances of the software tools available to implement them. On top of my list is Machine Learning for Hackers. One of the reasons I love this book is that it is actually a textbook on machine learning meant for hackers.

This post originally published on Medium; it is republished here with permission. The word robot was coined by Czech author Karel Čapek, who used it in his 1921 play R.U.R. to describe a fleet of intelligent machines. He named his invention based on the Slavonic word "rabota," which means labor. More tellingly, rabota is also the root of the word "rob," or slave. It's interesting to note that today, robotics and automation promise to do away with some of the most tedious, repetitive tasks we love to hate. Take telemarketing, for example--one of the most slave-like occupations in the 21st century.

He's a lightning-fast learner, he speaks eight languages and he's considered an expert in multiple fields. He's got an exemplary work ethic, is a speed reader and finds insights no one else can. On a personal note, he's a mean chef and even offers good dating advice. Named after IBM's first CEO, Watson was born back in 2007 as part of an effort by IBM Research to develop a question-answering system that could compete on the American quiz show "Jeopardy." Since trouncing its human opponents on the show in 2011, it has expanded considerably.

SAN FRANCISCO: Mark Zuckerberg envisions a software system inspired by the "Iron Man" character Jarvis as a virtual butler managing his household. The Facebook founder's dream is about artificial intelligence, which is slowly but surely creeping into our daily lives, no longer just science fiction. Artificial intelligence or AI is getting a foothold in people's homes, starting with the Amazon devices like its Echo speaker which links to a personal assistant "Alexa" to answer questions and control connected devices such as appliances or light bulbs. Analyst Carolina Milanesi of the research firm Creative Strategies said that "2016 was the year about raising awareness, and exposing consumers to the idea of AI in a more mass market way." Milanesi said it may take time for the technology to fulfill its potential, noting that companies need "a strong hook" to bring large numbers of consumers into this world.

Amazon announced Wednesday that it had made its first commercial drone delivery. CEO Jeff Bezos revealed in a Tweet that it took 13 minutes from "click to delivery" and that the delivery made to a customer in England is on Amazon's books. Drone deliveries might be in a nascent stage right now, but companies such as Amazon and Domino's have proved with their test deliveries that commercial drone deliveries are a not-so-distant possibility. Drone deliveries take less time than traditional mode of deliveries and seem to be a more convenient way for retailers to make deliveries. Amazon is currently using two of its customers as test subjects, but the company believes that its "Prime Air" service has great potential.

How will people sift and navigate information intelligently in the future, when there's even more data being pushed at them? Information overload is a problem we struggle with now, so the need for better ways to filter and triage digital content is only going to step up as the MBs keep piling up. Researchers in Finland have their eye on this problem and have completed an interesting study that used EEG (electroencephalogram) sensors to monitor the brain signals of people reading the text of Wikipedia articles, combining that with machine learning models trained to interpret the EEG data and identify which concepts readers found interesting. Using this technique the team was able to generate a list of keywords their test readers mentally flagged as informative as they read -- which could then, for example, be used to predict other relevant Wikipedia articles to that person. Or, down the line, help filter a social media feed, or flag content that's of real-time interest to a user of augmented reality, for example.

Analysts at global investment manager Bernstein believe the "age of industrialization is coming to an end," with robots set to destroy manufacturing jobs globally. That may not sound seismic. After all, the industrial revolution happened hundreds of years ago and manufacturing jobs have been the minority of all jobs in the West for decades. But Bernstein is arguing that the nature of capitalism is undergoing a fundamental change. Analysts Michael W. Parker and Alberto Moel argue that Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, the foundational textbooks of economics, is becoming redundant because of two trends: the rise of robotics and China's modernising economy.

Technology and artificial intelligence have advanced so much that many traditionally human-held jobs are now performed by robots and this trend toward automation is only gaining strength. Thus, human workers are gradually becoming obsolete, including those with roles like restaurant workers and truck drivers. Automation has already caused an increase in unemployment, as the number of jobs available to humans simply diminishes. According to Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, eventually the only option will be a universal basic income (or UBI) for the whole country. With UBI, each person receives a regular check from the government.