The marriage of computing power and data is finally bearing fruit in the field of cognitive computing, sometimes called machine learning or, more controversially, artificial intelligence. In its most everyday form, we see it in tools such as Google Translate or Microsoft's Bing Translate, which can translate phrases and documents effortlessly across multiple languages. More futuristically, the promise of self-driving vehicles, which can complete entire road journeys without driver intervention, is already being realised. Yet the biggest revolution in work is happening at some of the most basic levels, such as reading and dissecting legal documents to extract meaning and useful information. The tedious slog of work can be transformed by computers which are able to read and parse legal phrases, and summarise them or enter relevant details into a database or spreadsheet.

Jon Barker: Jon Barker is a Solution Architect with NVIDIA, helping customers and partners develop applications of GPU-accelerated machine learning and data analytics to solve defense and national security problems. He is particularly focused on applications of the rapidly developing field of deep learning. Prior to joining NVIDIA, Jon spent almost a decade as a government research scientist within the U.K. Ministry of Defence and the U.S. Department of Defense R&D communities. While in government service, he led R&D projects in sensor data fusion, big data analytics, and machine learning for multi-modal sensor data to support military situational awareness and aid decision making. He has a Ph.D. and B.Sc. in Pure Mathematics from the University of Southampton, U.K.

This week, in Geneva, Indian diplomats are closely monitoring an international expert review of the legal implications of the so-called "lethal autonomous weapons". These weapons will have the capability of selecting and engaging targets on their own. Although fully autonomous weapons are yet to register significant presence in the arsenal of any nation, many consider their development and deployment inevitable in the coming years. Rapid advances in robotics, machine-learning and big-data analytics are at once driving the so-called "fourth industrial revolution" and the transformation of modern warfare. How the leading powers mobilise and deploy these technologies will shape the balance of economic and military power among them in the coming decades.

Nvidia became famous for its graphics processing unit chips that power some of the hottest gaming personal computers. Today, Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang signaled that he's aiming even higher in a bid to reinvent the data center and cloud computing. The company announced a new chip and a new computers both focused on artificial intelligence, in particular the fast-rising branch called deep learning that attempts to mimic the activity on layers of neurons in the brain. The technology is the basis for recent breakthroughs in speech and image recognition, self-driving cars and other technology-driven products and services. "Our company has gone all-in on deep learning," Huang said at the Apr. 5 opening of its annual GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, where he made the announcements.

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

SAN FRANCISCO -- You already chat with friends on Facebook Messenger. Now Messenger wants you to chat with businesses and get updates from them, too. That's the future Facebook pitched Tuesday at f8, its annual conference for software developers in San Francisco. "We think you should message a business just the way you would message a friend," Mark Zuckerberg said on stage at f8. He laughed: "To order flowers on 1-800-Flowers,you never have to call 1-800-Flowers again."

Once considered the subject of our imagination, best left in the realm of science fiction, robots are now a growing technology that is rapidly changing our world. We have become accustomed to seeing them on our TV screens in cartoons such as The Jetsons (1962-1988) or in films such as Big Hero 6 (2014), Elysium (2013) or Robot and Frank (2012). Whether they are helping surgeons with keyhole surgery, manufacturing medicine or assisting the elderly, it is clear that robots have left the realm of science fiction and are a reality that may soon be coming to a home or health facility near us. There are clear benefits to using robots as seen by countries such as Japan where robots now help care for its ageing population. In the UK, which is also facing similar issues, NHS Western Isles and NHS Shetland for example have been trialling the use of a robot called'Giraff' in patients' homes.

Last week, scholars revealed an as-yet-unknown Rembrandt painting. The picture, which shows a man looking away, had the rich colors, subtle emotion, characteristic brushstrokes, and evocative play of light and shadow so characteristic of the Dutch master's style. But it turns out this mysterious picture wasn't a long-lost Rembrandt canvas uncovered in some forgotten 17th-century warehouse: It was instead made out of whole cloth by a computer algorithm and a 3D printer. The computer algorithm created the "new Rembrandt" after painstakingly studying the painter's entire corpus, then mimicking Rembrandt's painting techniques, styles and subjects. While the artistic merits of the painting are a matter of personal opinion, the process could reveal more insights into the great master's works, said Gary Schwartz, an art historian and author of "Rembrandt's Universe: His Art, His Life, His World" (Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2014).

Penguins living in the Antarctic Ocean are under threat from a variety of factors including climate change, fisheries and human disturbance. In spite of studying the region for over a hundred years, scientists have still not developed a way to measure changes in penguin populations. Now researchers have developed a new way to keep an eye on penguins, using 50 cameras and the help of the general public. Penguins living in the Antarctic Ocean are under threat from a variety of factors including climate change, fisheries and human disturbance. The Penguins Lifeline project at the University of Oxford has been running since 2009.

Since Google's computer program AlphaGo won four out of five matches against South Korea's champion Go player, Japanese governmental officials are seriously wondering whether artificial intelligence (AI) is the way to rewrite Japan's blueprint for the future. There is precedent for programs beating humans. IBM's Deep Blue beat chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997, and in 2012, computer programs beat professionals of Shogi, also known as Japanese chess. But the Japanese government has never been as shaken as this time. That's because Go, which is played on a grid of 19 horizontal lines and 19 vertical lines, is considered "the last bastion of human intelligence."