Challenger banks have turned their attention to artificial intelligence (AI) as they seek to provide a more personalised approach to banking. German digital bank Number26 has launched Pulse26, a new app that uses AI to provide updates based on the customer's personal banking history. Number26 says the more a customer uses their account, the "more accurate" the analysis becomes. It adds that Pulse26 will also provide "periodic, fun insights". The firm says: "In the first weeks after launching this feature we will start with your favourite spot – the restaurant that you visited most and where you used your Number26 card."

In 1942, Russian science fiction writer Isaac Asimov drew up his'Three Laws of Robotics': 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. For 75 years, these clauses have inspired research and thinking on robot rights. They were even taken up in the first'Ethics Charter for Robots' drawn up by South Korea in 2007. However, today Asimov's laws seem rather simplistic and obsolete as they are centred on humans rather than robots. Nowadays ethics and the rights of machines are starting to go further.

As we've mentioned, corporate giants in tech are competing to acquire private artificial intelligence startups, with Google emerging as the most active acquirer over the last 5 years. So far in 2016, there have already been over 20 acquisitions of AI startups, the most recent being Twitter's acquisition of visual-processing startup Magic Pony Technology. We analyzed M&A and IPO activity in this space from 2011. Our artificial intelligence category includes companies developing core AI algorithms as well as those applying AI solutions to specific industries like healthcare and cybersecurity. We used our database to analyze at what stage the AI companies exited.

Fahad Aziz is the Co-founder of Caremerge, an "award-winning technology company revolutionizing communication and coordination of care for seniors." As an industry leader in the tech space, Aziz has his finger on the pulse of disruptive healthcare tech. He says a few technologies are poised to seriously upend'business as usual' in healthcare in the near future, and they are not necessarily what you'd expect. In 2012, Vinod Khosla predicted that in time, "technology will replace 80% of what doctors do." He is spot on, according to Aziz.

Joachim Buhmann, Professor for Computer Science and Head of the Institute for Machine Learning at ETH Zurich, offers a more sober assessment of the situation: "The Go player's algorithm has, of course, set a milestone in machine learning, but it's a milestone in a very limited, artificial field," he says. Since the early days of computer science as a scientific discipline, one of the challenges against which it has been relatively easy to measure progress has been strategy games. It started with simple games such as Nine Men's Morris and Draughts. In 1997, IBM's computer Deep Blue beat the reigning chess world champion Garry Kasparov. Soon thereafter, programmers set their sights on the considerably more complex game Go as the next potential milestone.

Despite the promise of artificial intelligence, Europe's managers aren't yet ready to embrace it.

There are some things even Stephen Hawking can't figure out. On "Larry King Now," the world-famous astrophysicist told Larry King that he wonders why anything -- and everything -- even exists in the first place. "Why do the universe and all the laws of nature exist? "In one sense, they are, because otherwise we wouldn't be here to ask the question. But is there a deeper reason?" That's a little different from the answer Hawking gave in 2012 when New Scientist asked him what he thought about most during the day. Hawking said he's learned a lot about women since, and even asked King about his eight marriages to seven women. "Is that the triumph of hope over experience?" "You make a good point, Stephen," King said, noting his most recent marriage had lasted 19 years. "I think the answer is yes." Hawking was interviewed from the Canary Islands, where he was being honored at the Starmus Festival. During the interview, Hawking also warned that mankind could eventually be threatened by artificial intelligence. "I don't think that advances in artificial intelligence will necessarily be benign," he said. "Once machines reach the critical stage of being able to evolve themselves, we cannot predict whether their goals will be the same as ours." During an interview with King in 2010, Hawking said that two of mankind's biggest dangers were greed and stupidity. Not much has changed in the intervening years. "We certainly have not become less greedy or less stupid," Hawking said. "Six years ago, I was warning about pollution and overcrowding.

In February this year, hackers managed to steal 81 million from the central bank of Bangladesh after exploiting vulnerabilities with a sophisticated malware. In January this year, press reports highlighted how highly destructive malware infected three regional power utility service providers in Ukraine, which led to a power failure. In June last year, CNN reported how hackers successfully managed to ground 1400 passengers, as Poland's national carrier was forced to cancel 20 flights due to an attack on its IT systems. In an age of connected machines, these incidents show how hackers can cause irreparable damage. Despite putting in place the best IT infrastructure, some of the biggest firms have got hacked, as vulnerabilities exist in every enterprise and hackers only need one loophole to sneak in an enterprise and steal data.

How Brexit may affect artists and the art market. George Lucas abandons plans for a museum in Chicago. Miami models allege that an artist asked them to do intimate things with a rope. The Chicago Tribune says good riddance. Plus, how the referendum may affect artists.

Google has made no secret of its A.I. ambitions, and on Thursday it announced the next step in its bold plans to realize them: a brand-new research group in Europe focused squarely on machine learning. Based in Google Research offices in Zurich, Switzerland, the new group will focus on three key areas of artificial intelligence: machine intelligence, machine perception, and natural language processing and understanding, according to a blog post by Emmanuel Mogenet, head of Google Research for Europe. It will research ways to improve machine-learning infrastructure and enable the technology for practical use, for instance. Researchers will also work closely with linguists to advance natural language understanding, Mogenet said. Zurich, meanwhile, is home to Google's largest engineering office outside the U.S. Researchers there developed the engine that powers Knowledge Graph as well as the conversation engine that powers the Google Assistant in its Allo messaging app. Google's presence in Europe hasn't been entirely smooth, however: It's facing ongoing scrutiny over antitrust concerns and tax issues.