Researchers are turning to an ironic source for help in teaching machine learning programs about how to drive: the chaotic vigilante driving game Grand Theft Auto. Bear with us here, because this actually makes a ton of sense. Researchers at Intel Labs and Darmstadt University in Germany could map their own simulators to create real-world scenarios, but there's already a program out there with a realistic driving experience complete with pedestrians and other vehicles: Grand Theft Auto. So they've essentially annotated a version of the game to give cars real-world driving experience. No, they don't get guns or any of the "other" parts of the game, but anyone who has played GTA knows that the driving conditions are pretty true to real life.

It's pretty difficult to make digital marketing sexy, but crystal (yes, with a lower-case c, which is going to drive journalists and copy-editors bananas for the foreseeable future) is going at it with both barrels. Launched in public beta today at TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Alley, the product features beautiful dashboards, smart AI and Siri-like voice control. Its self-learning algorithms can learn when a company's audiences are most likely to respond to marketing messaging and much more. The dashboard in crystal is scrumptious and looks even better with the animations. "We like to call it an advisor rather than a virtual assistant," says Marco Cartasegna, one of the company's founders.

Michael Dell has unveiled newly merged Dell and EMC company Dell Technologies, with a strategy to address the IT infrastructure needs of a world of intelligent things. A collection of our most popular articles for IT leaders from the first few months of 2016, including: - Corporate giants recruit digitally-minded outsiders to drive transformation - Analytics platforms to drive strategy in 2016 - Next generation: The changing role of IT leaders. This email address is already registered. By submitting my Email address I confirm that I have read and accepted the Terms of Use and Declaration of Consent. By submitting your email address, you agree to receive emails regarding relevant topic offers from TechTarget and its partners.

Each player, dressed in a white jersey and matching protective gear, slides a puck in the direction of a heavily padded goaltender. The little discs swish across the floor in a black blur before smashing against the peripheral walls in loud thuds that echo throughout the Swiss Arena. The arena is home to the Kloten Flyers, Switzerland's leading hockey team, who regularly play to a packed house. But in less than a month, the icy floor inside the country's largest indoor venue will transform into a race course for a different kind of sporting event. On Oct. 8th, the stadium will open its doors to the world's first Cybathlon, a multidiscipline competition for people with disabilities who use bionic technologies to augment their bodies.

When it comes to detecting OS X malware, the future may not be rooted in machine learning algorithms, but patterns and heatmap visualization, a researcher posits. In an academic paper published by Virus Bulletin on Monday, Vincent Van Mieghem, a former student at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, describes how a recurring pattern he observed in OS X system calls can be used to indicate the presence of malware. Van Mieghem wrote the paper, "Behavioral Detection and Prevention of Malware on OS X," (.PDF) while interning at Fox-IT but has since moved on to PricewaterhouseCoopers' cybersecurity division. By the numbers, the detection method Van Mieghem concocted is a success; it detected infections from 100 percent of malware samples found on OS X systems at the time. The method apparently leaves little room for error too; it resulted in a scant 0 percent to 20 percent false positive rate, depending on the user, according to the paper.

Why we urgently need to measure AI's societal impacts How will artificial intelligence systems change the way we live? This is a tough question: on one hand, AI tools are producing compelling advances in complex tasks, with dramatic improvements in energy consumption, audio processing, and leukemia detection. There is extraordinary potential to do much more in the future. On the other hand, AI systems are already making problematic judgements that are producing significant social, cultural, and economic impacts in people's everyday lives. AI and decision-support systems are embedded in a wide array of social institutions, from influencing who is released from jail to shaping the news we see.

Imagine if you can, Japanese punk rock in the background and a motorcycle speeding through the streets of Tokyo. The camera pans around, over the shoulder of the rider and up ahead is a raging monster. A truck pulls up beside the motorcycle and a crane/lift contraption pulls it inside. They spring into action battling the beast as the A.D. Police arrive and bumble around. The armored suits crush the monster and vanish.

Timandra Harkness is a regular on BBC Radio 4, writing and presenting BBC Radio 4's FutureProofing series and documentaries such as Data, Data Everywhere, and Personality Politics. Her book Big Data: does size matter? A regular public speaker and chair on scientific and technological topics, she works with the Cheltenham Science Festival, the British Council, the Institute of Ideas, the Wellcome Collection and a Robotics conference in Moscow, among many others. She is a member of the Royal Statistical Society and has 86% of a Mathematics and Statistics degree with the Open University. She hopes to reach 100% in 2017.

With the introduction of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, Apple made one of the boldest moves smartphone design has seen in recent years - the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack. The reason behind the decision, Apple executive Phil Schiller explained was'the courage to move on and do something new that betters all of us.' As part of the latest launch, Apple is bundling its familiar EarPod headphones with both a Lightning connector to plug into the charging port, along with an adaptor for hooking up older wired headphones with the new handsets. It's also released a pair of wireless headphones, known as AirPods, that cost 159 ( 159). Owners of the iPhone 7 will not be able to directly connect any headphones with a traditional 3.5mm plug.

It could easily be mistaken for a children's toy, but this miniature motorcycle is actually a step towards a riderless motorbike. A student in France has designed the tiny two-wheeler, which can travel at up to 40 miles per hour, as part of his Master's project. His aim is to one day produce an entirely autonomous motorcycle that can outperform human riders. Eric Unnervik, a microengineer at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in France has designed a tiny two-wheeler (pictured(, which can travel at up to 40 mph, as part of his Master's project. The bike is fitted with a tiny credit-card sized computer, called the Raspberry Pi, as well as sensors that measure the angle and speed of travel.