We propose minimum regret search (MRS), a novel acquisition function for Bayesian optimization. MRS bears similarities with information-theoretic approaches such as entropy search (ES). However, while ES aims in each query at maximizing the information gain with respect to the global maximum, MRS aims at minimizing the expected simple regret of its ultimate recommendation for the optimum. While empirically ES and MRS perform similar in most of the cases, MRS produces fewer outliers with high simple regret than ES. We provide empirical results both for a synthetic single-task optimization problem as well as for a simulated multi-task robotic control problem.

Overwatch sounds like a game I shouldn't want to play: a hero-focused team shooter that seems aimed at players given to godlike acts of ballistic skill. But I should know better. This is Blizzard we're talking about, after all, a studio that turned a generic fantasy-verse born from a niche real-time strategy game into a global online roleplaying sensation. After chatting with Overwatch co-director Jeffrey Kaplan, I'm almost convinced it's a game for me--the sort of lapsed, Quake-era clanner who has lost interest in competitive shooters. Here, by way of our lightly edited conversation, is a rundown of why.

Artificial intelligence – what's the worst that can happen? Working with hacktivist and entrepreneur Federico Pistono, he has come up with a set of worst-case scenarios for a potential malevolent AI, from "enslaving mankind" to "destroying the universe". Yampolskiy argues that anticipating as many negative outcomes as possible – just as cybersecurity researchers do when looking for vulnerabilities – will help us guard against disaster. "The standard framework in AI thinking has always been to propose new safety mechanisms," he says. But looking at the issue with a cybersecurity mindset puts a different spin on things: starting with a list of all the things that could go wrong will make it easier to test any safeguards we may eventually want to put in place.

This weekend, I hopped on a train for my annual trek to Maker Faire, held this year at the San Mateo Events Center. Over 150,000 people attended this year's show, coming to check out new drones, 3D printers, robots and more. This particular event is the granddaddy of Maker Faires, started by Maker Media and its visionary founder Dale Dougherty. It bills itself as the greatest "Show and Tell on Earth." I've long been following the Maker Movement as a part of my overall interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education.

My mother enrolled in a high school physics course in 1968. This wouldn't be especially notable except for the fact that it was the first time in her school's history that girls were permitted to take physics. In prior years, boys were allowed to study physics while girls were expected to enroll in home economics. While my mother acknowledges she was not destined for a career in physics, there were women of her generation that did aspire to enter the scientific field: Dr. France Córdova, Director of the National Science Foundation; Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and Persis Drell, former director of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, are just a few of the women who not only studied physics, but excelled and built their careers in the field despite the barriers of their generation. Women have progressed significantly since 1968.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has been touted as a potential panacea for many of our national health services' current ills. But we need to employ intelligence and care of our own before jumping in'gung ho', says one NHS England boss.

As technology gets smarter and takes over more and more of the work we typically deem "skilled", are professionals like accountants at risk of being replaced? The short answer is "No". The long answer is "It all depends on the professional accountant's attitude". Let's begin by taking a step back to understand the nature of this trend. The author Martin Ford has written extensively on this subject, and his recent book, The Rise of the Robots, contains a lot of food for thought. The main point that should concern professional accountants is that the ongoing drive towards automation is no longer just a threat to low-level jobs, particularly those that already rely heavily on machinery--think driverless cars, automated mining and agriculture and so on.

Self-Organising Maps (SOMs) are an unsupervised data visualisation technique that can be used to visualise high-dimensional data sets in lower (typically 2) dimensional representations. In this post, we examine the use of R to create a SOM for customer segmentation. The figures shown here used use the 2011 Irish Census information for the greater Dublin area as an example data set. This work is based on a talk given to the Dublin R Users group in January 2014. SOMs were first described by Teuvo Kohonen in Finland in 1982, and Kohonen's work in this space has made him the most cited Finnish scientist in the world.

Adopting a digital transformation strategy in the face of tight budgets and cuts could save the NHS from becoming increasingly burdened and possibly collapsing as the healthcare service we know. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has committed 4bn to invest in technology for the NHS, but the level of digital transformation and its maturity across 239 trusts is mixed at best. Achieving a data-sharing, paper-free NHS appears a little way off. Solid projects have been undertaken recently to adopt more digital services over traditional on-premise IT systems in public healthcare. These projects are not as comprehensive as the IT overhaul undertaken by the Cambridge University NHS Hospitals Trust in partnership with HP, but they do show how the NHS is beginning to use more digital technology that yields results.

The World Economic Forum's recent The Future of Jobs Report went further in saying that '65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that don't yet exist'. In putting ThisWay forward to the pitch competition at Venturefest, Stewart McTavish, founding Director of the accelerator ideaspace, at University of Cambridge, said: "We look for founders with big ideas and the business acumen to leverage our support. Ultimately we are looking for companies that will positively affect millions in three to five years' time. ThisWay's traction in hiring for large and small companies has demonstrated an ability to exceed these expectations." Founder/CEO,Angela Hood left the world of engineering and architecture to lead research with PhDs in the areas of machine learning, artificial intelligence and data modeling.