Car manufacturers will have difficulty demonstrating just how safe self-driving vehicles are because of what's at the core of their smarts: machine learning. "You can't just assume this stuff is going to work," says Phillip Koopman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who works in the automotive industry. In 2014, a market research firm projected that the self-driving car market will be worth 87 billion by 2030. Several companies, including Google, Tesla, and Uber, are experimenting with computer-assisted or fully autonomous driving projects--with varying success because of the myriad technical obstacles that must be overcome. Koopman is one of several researchers who believe that the nature of machine learning makes verifying that these autonomous vehicles will operate safely very challenging.

While artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are starting to play a more valuable role in people's lives, a new report states that the UK is ill-prepared for an inevitable autonomous future. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee said today that the UK government "does not yet have a strategy" for fostering AI and robotics or properly considered the "social and ethical dilemmas" they may pose. Ministers found that while such systems are still in their infancy, AI is already starting to have "transformational impacts" on society, suggesting now is the time to evaluate possible the potential ramifications of its growth. The report touches on the development of driverless cars and emergence of supercomputers that can beat world champions at an ancient Chinese board game and questions whether the government has a plan for when "algorithms" go wrong (we all know how Ex Machina played out). "Artificial intelligence has some way to go before we see systems and robots as portrayed in the creative arts such as Star Wars," says Dr Tania Mathias, interim Chair of the Committee.

WASHINGTON – Insurgent groups like Hezbollah and the Islamic State group have learned how to weaponize surveillance drones and use them against each other, adding a new twist to Syria's civil war, a U.S. military official and others say. A video belonging to an AL Qaeda offshoot, Jund al-Aqsa, purportedly shows a drone landing on Syrian military barracks. In another video, small explosives purportedly dropped by the Iran-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah target the Sunni militant group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as the Nusra Front. A U.S. military official, who spoke anonymously because he wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the U.S. military is aware of the development. Commanders have warned troops to take cover if they see what they might have once dismissed as a surveillance drone, he said.

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, in his role as President of the Royal Marsden NHS (National Health Service) Foundation Trust, watches as lead surgeon Pardeep Kumar, performs surgery for the removal of a bladder tumour on a male patient during a visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital on November 07, 2013 in Sutton, Greater London. Founded in 2014 and backed by the likes of Salesforce billionaire Marc Benioff with 20 million ( 16 million), the Tel Aviv-based company says it has taught an algorithm to identify early signs of breast cancer with the help of thousands of previous mammograms. That constantly improving algorithm - trained using a technique known as machine learning, which is a type of AI that equips computers with the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed - is now better than radiologists using the best Computer Aided Detection (CAD) methods for mammography, the company claims. Eldad Elnekave, Zebra's chief medical officer, told Business Insider in Tel Aviv that the algorithm can detect half of the breast cancer cases that are currently being missed by radiologists. Radiologists working for the NHS fail to spot breast cancer in thousands of mammograms every year, according to The Telegraph.

Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are going to completely change how we live and work but the UK government is totally unprepared, MPs have warned. The Science and Technology Committee released a report on Wednesday warning that the UK government "does not yet have a strategy" for equipping citizens with the skills they need to flourish in a world where AI is more prevalent. It also has no strategy for dealing with the social and ethical dilemmas that AI advances present, according to the report. Acting chair of the Science and Technology Committee, Dr Tania Mathias MP, said in a statement: "Artificial intelligence has some way to go before we see systems and robots as portrayed in the creative arts such as Star Wars. At present, 'AI machines' have narrow and specific roles, such as in voice-recognition or playing the board game'Go'. "But science fiction is slowly becoming science fact, and robotics and AI look destined to play an increasing role in our lives over the coming decades.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

"The future is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed." In an automated world, is it nearly time to put humans out to pasture? Does the future resemble a leisure-time utopia or a robot-tended human-zoo? Will the notion of work become a thing of the past if machines really can do everything better, faster and for longer? From driving taxis, to writing reports, to designing websites, there is or may soon be an artificially intelligent system better equipped to do your job at a fraction of the cost.

FILE- In this March 1, 2013 file photo, anti-Syrian President Bashar Assad protesters hold the Jabhat al-Nusra flag, as they shout slogans during a demonstration, at Kafranbel town, in Idlib province, northern Syria. Insurgent groups like Hezbollah and the Islamic State group in Syria have learned how to weaponize surveillance drones and use them against each other, adding a new twist to the country's civil war, a U.S. military official and others say. FILE- In this March 1, 2013 file photo, anti-Syrian President Bashar Assad protesters hold the Jabhat al-Nusra flag, as they shout slogans during a demonstration, at Kafranbel town, in Idlib province, northern Syria. Insurgent groups like Hezbollah and the Islamic State group in Syria have learned how to weaponize surveillance drones and use them against each other, adding a new twist to the country's civil war, a U.S. military official and others say. WASHINGTON (AP) -- Militant groups like Hezbollah and the Islamic State group have learned how to weaponize surveillance drones and use them against each other, adding a new twist to Syria's civil war, a U.S. military official and others say.

A formal branch of artificial intelligence, machine-learning builds systems that learn directly from the data they are fed and effectively program themselves to analyse that data and make accurate predictions. Having already helped multiple business sectors create new models and drive competitive advantage, now it's the turn of the insurance industry. So just how is machine-learning changing the way insurers do business? "It gives insurers three distinct advantages," explains Max Richter, managing director in Accenture's UK insurance analytics group. "The first is to mine greater volumes of data, the second to scale analytics across the organisation by working smarter and faster, and lastly by answering more complex questions from'will this customer leave me at renewal?' to'what can I do about it?'" As such it is quickly becoming an essential tool for the insurance sector, specifically enabling companies to yield higher predictive accuracy as it can fit more flexible and complex models.

When someone important to us dies, we feel their loss keenly, and it can be difficult to let go of the pain we feel. People find different ways to cope – religion, focusing on happy memories, sometimes talking aloud to the departed person – even though they will never again receive a reply. But what if you could receive a reply? Eugenia Kuyda, the co-founder and CEO of a Russian artificial intelligence startup called Luka Inc (formerly IO), has developed a chatbot that lets anyone talk to her dearly departed best friend Roman Mazurenko, a fellow tech entrepreneur who died in a car accident in November 2015. Anyone who downloads the iOS mobile app Luka can instantly talk to the bot in either English or Russian by adding @Roman. You can select from the bot's options to learn about Mazurenko's career, or ask him questions to see how the bot responds.