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

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made a few spectacular-sounding headlines this year, with various organizations showing off their own digital creation's cognitive capabilities. These tend to relate to "logical" intelligence, dealing with mathematics, rationality, and decision-making. However, just this month, a team of researchers from the National Research Nuclear University Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (NRNU MEPhI) has announced that they are developing an AI that is able to have both narrative and emotional intellect. If this so-called "Virtual Actor" (VA) is able to understand human emotions, it will buck the trend in the types of AIs emerging from other research teams across the world. Google's DeepDream, for example, is a truly surreal convoluted neural network that can "think" of hallucinogenic images.

Pioneering GCs are taking control of legal spend, armed with the latest tech. Can the rest of the in-house community keep pace? If conventional law firms have been slow to embrace technology – and they have – their counterparts in-house have been barely moving. But in the last five years signs have emerged of'early adopters' in the bluechip general counsel (GC) community who are willing to do more than apply new tools at the margins. The GCs are turning to technology to reshape the way they work. Aside from the obvious efficiency benefits, the appeal to such GC pioneers is often more potent to the professional soul: control. As Reckitt Benckiser's vice president and GC Claire Debney comments: 'I want the intellectual capital in-house, in my team. I don't want to be outsourcing all of our supply agreements, distribution agreements, or our digital platform agreements. We want our people at the meetings and in the negotiations and have the external back-up if we need it.'

The concept of inhuman intelligence goes back to the deep prehistory of mankind. At first the province of gods, demons, and spirits, it transferred seamlessly into the interlinked worlds of magic and technology. Ancient Greek mythos had numerous robots, made variously by gods or human inventors, while extant artefacts like the Antikythera calendrical computer show that even in 200 BCE we could build machinery that usefully mimicked human intellectual abilities. There has been no age or civilisation without a popular concept of artificial intelligence (AI). Ours, however, is the first where the genuine article--machinery that comfortably exceeds our own thinking skills--is not only possible but achievable.

Microsoft has made Project Malmo available for novice to experienced programmers on GitHub via an open-source license. It's a platform that uses the world of Minecraft as a testing ground for advanced artificial intelligence research. The system, which had until now only been open to a small group of computer scientists in private preview, is primarily designed to help researchers develop sophisticated, more general artificial intelligence, or AI, that can do things like learn, hold conversations, make decisions and complete complex tasks. That's key to creating systems that can augment human intelligence--and eventually help us with everything from cooking and doing laundry to driving and performing lifesaving tasks in an operating room. Katja Hofmann, a researcher in Microsoft's Cambridge, UK, research lab, who leads the development of Project Malmo, said the system will help researchers develop new techniques and approaches to reinforcement learning.

A new startup factory focused on building artificial intelligence companies is launching in Hong Kong this November. Zeroth, as the accelerator is known, will offer 10 startups 20,000 each ( 15,000) in exchange for a 6% equity stake. Startups will also receive mentoring and office space. The accelerator is being launched by Tak Lo, who was previously a director at accelerator TechStars London. Speaking to Business Insider on Tuesday, Lo said that he plans to make Zeroth a success with the help of his AI connections in Europe.

It is no doubt that the sub-field of machine learning / artificial intelligence has increasingly gained more popularity in the past couple of years. As Big Data is the hottest trend in the tech industry at the moment, machine learning is incredibly powerful to make predictions or calculated suggestions based on large amounts of data. Some of the most common examples of machine learning are Netflix's algorithms to make movie suggestions based on movies you have watched in the past or Amazon's algorithms that recommend books based on books you have bought before. So if you want to learn more about machine learning, how do you start? For me, my first introduction is when I took an Artificial Intelligence class when I was studying abroad in Copenhagen.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), approved at the end of April and scheduled to enter into force in 2018, does not only deal with EU citizens' privacy. One of the measures included in the new bill aims to restrict so-called "automated individual decision-making." Such restrictions can be applied to algorithms using machine-learning tools that are becoming more and more widespread among the world's tech giants. The regulation will legally prevent these programs to take decisions that "significantly affect" EU nationals: for instance, these algorithms will not be used to evaluate somebody's "performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location, or movements." As AI and machine-learning are going through a worldwide boom, GDPR's wet blanket rule is unlikely to go down well in the tech circles. But what could be even more worrisome for AI fans is another part of the bill: a measure dubbed "right to explanation."

Jaguar Land Rover is to start testing self-driving technology in a fleet of more than 100 research vehicles on public roads – including a'cone-buster' system to take the pain out of roadworks. The first of the vehicles will be driven on a new 41 mile test route on motorways and urban roads around Coventry and Solihull later this year. The trials are to help develop innovative self-driving technology including'Roadwork Assist' that steers frustrated drivers through the blight of proliferating traffic cones, roadworks, and contraflows. Jaguar Land Rover is to begin testing 100 research vehicles equipped with self-driving technology on public roads in Britain, including a new feature called Roadwork Assist that aims to steer drivers safely through narrow lanes and complex cone systems that proliferate on the country's roads (pictured) The vehicles will also feature a'Safe Pullaway' feature aimed at preventing low-speed accidents at junctions, roundabouts and in slow moving traffic that can be caused by road works. A number of new features in the new Jaguar promise to help motorists see the road ahead and better detect and avoid obstacles and hazards.

It has become the mark of football's great freekick takers - the ability to strike the ball so it moves unpredictably through the air, leaving goalkeepers standing. Players like Christiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale have become famous for using the so called'knuckleball' shot. Now researchers have built a robot that kick a'knuckleball' just like Ronaldo every time, but without the fear of crying if it loses, or stripping off its shirt if it wins. Researchers have now built a robot (pictured) that can kick the ball in a'knuckleball' way every time, and used a wind tunnel and high-speed camera to work out what forces cause this zigzag trajectory of balls through the air Knuckleball is a technique developed by baseball player Eddie Cicotte. Cicotte's method involved holding the ball between his knuckles with the intention of avoiding the rotational spin created by throwing a ball normally.