The traditional definition of artificial intelligence is the ability of machines to execute tasks and solve problems in ways normally attributed to humans. Some tasks that we consider simple--recognizing an object in a photo, driving a car--are incredibly complex for AI. Machines can surpass us when it comes to things like playing chess, but those machines are limited by the manual nature of their programming; a 30 gadget can beat us at a board game, but it can't do--or learn to do--anything else. This is where machine learning comes in. Show millions of cat photos to a machine, and it will hone its algorithms to improve at recognizing pictures of cats.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is taking place in San Francisco, where Tim Cook and other executives are expected to reveal changes to Apple operating systems, give Siri a bigger role, and make the App Store more compelling for developers. We'll be live-blogging here, as our reporters at the Bill Graham Auditorium, follow the coverage. Thanks the audience and Apple community and ends WWDC. App varies from teaching young people simple code to introducing more complicated coding features. "Swift Playground will revolutionize the way people learn to code," Cook said.

Microsoft has launched its smallest Xbox games console - the Xbox One S - at the E3 gaming event in Los Angeles, but then revealed it was working on something even more powerful. The new console, which comes in a colour called'robot white', is 40 per cent smaller than the original Xbox One and has abandoned the bulky power external supply seen in previous consoles. It also supports 4K Ultra HD video, but will also come with up to 2TB of internal hard disk space. But Microsoft said it will be dwarfed by a new console it plans to launch in 2017. Codenamed Project Scropio, the newly announced system will aim to deliver true 4K Ultra HD gaming with what Microsoft claims will be the'most powerful games console ever built'.

Once a year, when Slava Epstein was growing up in Moscow, his mother took him to the Exhibition of the Achievements of the National Economy, a showcase for the wonders of Soviet life. The expo featured many things--from industrial harvesters to Uzbek wine--but Epstein, who began going in the nineteen-sixties, when he was eight or nine, was interested primarily in one: the Cosmos Pavilion, a building the size of a hangar, with a ceiling shaped like a giant inverted parabola. Space fever was running high in the city. Since 1961, when Yuri Gagarin orbited the globe, unmanned vessels had been launched toward Mars and Venus. Beside the expo's entrance, the towering Monument to the Conquerors of Space depicted a probe swooping up to the heavens. The Pavilion displayed futuristic technology--Vostok rockets and Soyuz orbiters--but Epstein was less interested in the glories of advanced thruster design than in the glories of space. He wanted to devote himself to astronomy. When a textbook that he found on the topic began with algebraic formulas, he prodded his older brother to explain them. During high school, he enrolled in classes in physics and math at Moscow State University. His parents disapproved of his desired career: because he is half Jewish, Epstein would face harsh Soviet quotas limiting Jews in the study of physics, a field deemed relevant to national security. But after his first lecture the professor invited him for a walk, and affirmed what they had been saying all along. "Don't do it," he warned. Soviet Russia may have been a fatalist's paradise, but from a young age Epstein felt that he was hardwired for optimism. He convinced himself that what is truly important in science is the ability to connect ideas, no matter the field, and so he took up biology. Rather than telescopes, he would use microscopes, which he began taking with him on trips to the White Sea, near the Arctic Circle, to study protozoa along the shore--research that could be conducted with minimal state interference. Over time, he grew interested in even smaller, more ancient forms of life: bacteria. Studying microbes inevitably causes a reordering of one's perceptions: for more than two billion years, they were the only life on this planet, and they remain in many ways its dominant life form. To a remarkable extent, the microbial cosmos was less explored than the actual cosmos: precisely how the organisms evolve, replicate, fight, and communicate remains unclear. Nearly all of microbiology, Epstein eventually learned, was built on the study of a tiny fraction of microbial life, perhaps less than one per cent, because most bacteria could not be grown in a laboratory culture, the primary means of analyzing them. By the time he matured as a scientist, many researchers had given up trying to cultivate new species, writing off the majority as "dark matter"--a term used in astronomy for an inscrutable substance that may make up most of the universe but cannot be seen.

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

'We found birds, especially songbirds and parrots, have surprisingly large numbers of neurons in their pallium, the part of the brain that corresponds to the cerebral cortex, which supports higher cognition function such as planning for the future or finding patterns,' said Professor Herculano-Houzel. 'That explains why they exhibit levels of cognition at least as complex as primates.' The connection between intelligence and neuron count has not been firmly established, but the experts say avian brains could provide birds with a much higher cognitive power than mammals. The study has also demonstrated that there is more than one way to build a larger brain. Previously, it had been thought as brains grew larger neurons had to grow bigger as well because they had to connect over longer distances.

You'll find the Future of Humanity Institute down a medieval backstreet in the centre of Oxford. It is beside St Ebbe's church, which has stood on this site since 1005, and above a Pure Gym, which opened in April. The institute, a research faculty of Oxford University, was established a decade ago to ask the very biggest questions on our behalf. Notably: what exactly are the "existential risks" that threaten the future of our species; how do we measure them; and what can we do to prevent them? Or to put it another way: in a world of multiple fears, what precisely should we be most terrified of? When I arrive to meet the director of the institute, Professor Nick Bostrom, a bed is being delivered to the second-floor office. Existential risk is a round-the-clock kind of operation; it sleeps fitfully, if at all. Bostrom, a 43-year-old Swedish-born philosopher, has lately acquired something of the status of prophet of doom among those currently doing most to shape our civilisation: the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley.

Matt Krisiloff is in a small, glass-walled conference room off the lobby of Y Combinator's office in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, shouting distance from some of the country's wealthiest startups, many of which Y Combinator has nurtured and helped fund. Krisiloff, who manages the operations of the tech incubator's program for very early-stage companies, is explaining why it is committed to investing an amount said to be in the tens of millions of dollars in a venture that is guaranteed never to make a penny. It's the simplest business model conceivable: hand thousands of dollars over to individuals in return for nothing, no strings attached. Krisiloff insists he and his Y Combinator colleagues can't wait to get started giving away the money. "This could be really transformative," he says. "It may help change how humans, society, and technology all operate together in the future."

The logo of Symantec Corp., is displayed at the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover, Germany, on Tuesday, March 6, 2012. Along with Symantec's acquisition of security firm Blue Coat, Apple is unveiling new iOS features at the Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco Monday. Video game conference E3 will also occur on Monday in Los Angeles, where Sony will demo its PlayStation 4 virtual reality game console. Here are the top tech stocks to watch, plus a heads up the day's biggest tech conferences: The computer security company will acquire Blue Coat, a network security firm based in Sunnyvale, Calif, for 4.6 billion in cash as announced on Monday. With the deal, Blue Coat CEO Greg Clark will become the new CEO of Symantec and join its board of directors.

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