Affectiva, a startup developing "emotion recognition technology" that can read people's moods from their facial expressions captured in digital videos, raised 14 million in a Series D round of funding led by Fenox Venture Capital. According to co-founder Rana el Kaliouby, the Waltham, Mass.-based company wants its technology to become the de facto means of adding emotional intelligence and empathy to any interactive product, and the best way for organizations to attain unvarnished insights about customers, patients or constituents. She explained that Affectiva uses computer vision and deep learning technology to analyze facial expressions or non-verbal cues in visual content online, but not the language or conversations in a video. The company's technology ingests digital images--including video in chat applications, live-streamed or recorded videos, or even GIFs--through simple web cams typically. Its system first categorizes then maps the facial expressions to a number of emotional states, like happy, sad, nervous, interested or surprised.

They say that kids aren't born sexist or racist--hate is taught. Artificial intelligence is the same way, and humans are fabulous teachers. ProPublica reported, for example, that an algorithm used to to predict the likelihood of convicts committing future crime tends to tag black folks as higher risk than whites. Despite the oft-repeated claim that such data-driven approaches are more objective than past methods of determining the risk of recidivism or anything else, it's clear that our very human biases have rubbed off on our machines. Consider the case of Microsoft's simple Tay bot, which sucked up all the slurs and racist opinions that Twitter users threw at it and ended up spouting Nazi drivel.

"Banks, financial services, insurance companies as well as global enterprises in other data-intensive industries are using cognitive automation to solve operational problems," said Alex Lyashok, COO of WorkFusion. "Gartner's report highlights the opportunity to use smart machines to transform existing business processes. Our product helps operations teams apply smart automation in an easy, non-disruptive way. Not only does WorkFusion help deliver as much as a 60% reduction in common back-office processes, but customers are also able to improve customer experience by reducing cycle times and improving the quality of customer interactions." WorkFusion is the leading smart process automation solution for enterprise operations.

I read Michele Hanson's article (G2, 24 May) with a wry smile, having spent time earlier modifying a friend's computer to prevent it updating to Windows 10, as the same thing had nearly happened to me last month. What happens is that Microsoft installs a Trojan horse update along with all the normal ones. To prevent this happening, you need to uninstall update number KB3035583 (go to control panel, Windows update, installed updates, then find the right update KB3035583 right click on it and click uninstall). You may want to stop Microsoft installing it again by switching off automatic updates (Windows update, change settings). I have heard many stories of people who have upgraded to Windows 10 and found numerous problems using their computer, including lost data.

The way you drive is surprisingly unique. And in an era when automobiles have become data-harvesting, multi-ton mobile computers, the data collected by your car--or one you rent or borrow--can probably identify you based on that driving style after as little as a few minutes behind the wheel. In a study they plan to present at the Privacy Enhancing Technology Symposium in Germany this July, a group of researchers from the University of Washington and the University of California at San Diego found that they could "fingerprint" drivers based only on data they collected from internal computer network of the vehicle their test subjects were driving, what's known as a car's CAN bus. In fact, they found that the data collected from a car's brake pedal alone could let them correctly distinguish the correct driver out of 15 individuals about nine times out of ten, after just 15 minutes of driving. With 90 minutes driving data or monitoring more car components, they could pick out the correct driver fully 100 percent of the time. "With very limited amounts of driving data we can enable very powerful and accurate inferences about the driver's identity," says Miro Enev, a former University of Washington researcher who worked on the study before taking a job as a machine-learning engineer at Belkin.

There is a difference between knowledge and understanding. Knowledge typically comes down to knowing facts while understanding is the application of knowledge to the mastery of systems. You can know a lot while understanding very little. Just as an example, IBM's Watson artificial intelligence system that defeated the TV Jeopardy champs a few years ago knew all there was to know about Jeopardy questions but didn't really understand anything. Ask Watson to apply to removing your appendix its knowledge of hundreds of medical questions and you'd be disappointed and probably dead.

Robots are taking over iPhone manufacturer Foxconn: the world's biggest contract fabricator has successfully replaced as many as 60,000 factory workers with sophisticated machines that use artificial intelligence to perform elaborate assembly work more efficiently than humans do, a government official told the South China Morning Post. One Foxconn plant has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots" and "more companies are likely to follow suit," said Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region in the Jiangsu province, which is a manufacturing hub for the electronics industry. About 600 major companies in Kunshan are planning to tap artificial intelligence to replace workers with robots. Foxconn Technology Group confirmed to the BBC that it was automating "many of the manufacturing tasks associated with our operations." Still, Foxconn insists that using robots does not entail long-term job losses.

Recently esteemed M I T physicist, Max Tegmark, and science philosophy professor, from Oxford university, Nick Bostrom, joined forces to address the United Nations. They were there with the sole purpose of addressing their concerns over the dangers of Artificial Intelligence.

Xiaomi, the world's second-most-valuable startup, launched its first consumer drone on Wednesday and it didn't disappoint. The Mi Drone can capture 4K video, automatically avoids any obstacles and costs 300 less than the best-selling comparable product on the market. It seems like a sure-fire hit and a way for Xiaomi to recoup losses from slowing smartphone sales. The only problem is that Xiaomi's drone may never be seen outside China and the company's inability to scale globally continues to hinder growth. Consumer drones are arguably the first consumer electronics category where Chinese companies are defining the market and dominating sales.

The figure comes from a local government official, who said employee numbers at one of Foxconn's factories in Kunshan, near Shanghai, have been drastically slashed in recent months. Foxconn is headquartered in Taiwan, but has 12 factories in China, where it produces popular devices like the iPhone and iPad, along with a number of others. The official told the South China Morning Post: "The Foxconn factory has reduced its employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000, thanks to the introduction of robots. It has tasted success in reduction of labour costs." "More companies are likely to follow suit," the official added.