Drone delivery might be years away in the U.S., but it's becoming a reality in Rwanda this summer. A San Francisco-based drone delivery company says it'll start making its first deliveries of blood and medicine in Rwanda in July. Zipline International Inc., backed by tech heavyweights like Sequoia Capital and Google Ventures, demonstrated its technology for journalists last week in an open field in the San Francisco Bay area. In a demo broadcast on Periscope on Friday, a staffer launched a fixed-wing plane weighing just 22 pounds off a launcher that used compressed air. Electric-powered propellers took it the rest of the way, on a flight that could extend to 75 miles round trip, using military-grade GPS and software to navigate. As it dipped low before the drop-off area, the bottom popped open, and a cardboard box with a parachute made of butcher paper and biodegradable tape burst out, plopping to the ground a few steps away from CEO Keller Rinaudo, who walked over to retrieve it.

We are on the cusp of an exponential shift in machine learning, the ability of a computer to automatically refine its methods and improve its results as it receives more data. For the last couple of years, technology giants such as Google, IBM and Microsoft have been in an arms race to construct artificial neural networks that mimic the human brain. Increased computing power, combined with access to very large data sets and advancements in machine learning algorithms, have augured in this new era. We can expect to see a surge in deep learning startups focused on areas such as speech and object recognition, robotics and finance. In the secretive world of hedge funds a very large artificial intelligence play involved Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, which launched a six-strong AI unit led by David Ferrucci, who joined the fund at the end of 2012.

Scheduling a simple coffee meeting can take days and countless emails to complete, but Dennis Mortensen wants to change all that -- and more. In episode 623 of "This Week in Startups," the founder of x.ai show us his AI assistant, which sets meetings for you like an actual human. He also shares his thoughts on Siri, Echo, the Danish tax system, his vision for x.ai's AI assistants conquering other tasks, and the future of artificial intelligence. Throughout the episode, Jason and Dennis set up a meeting with each other using Amy, the x.ai assistant. After putting Amy to task, Dennis checks out of the email chain, and it's not at all obvious that Jason is talking to an AI.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has reshaped the company since taking over two years ago. Windows is still important, but it's no longer the only platform that matters: Microsoft is releasing software and supporting app development for Apple's iOS, Google's Android, and even its old enemy Linux. The infighting and aggressive dismissal of competitors is mostly gone. And Nadella has embraced cloud computing -- the idea that some customers don't want to run their own technology but would prefer to outsource it -- turning Microsoft into the clear No. 2 in the category after Amazon. We caught up with Nadella fresh off the company's Build conference for developers last week in San Francisco and ahead of the new Envision conference for business leaders, which kicks off Monday in New Orleans. Matt Rosoff: There was a lot of talk last week at Build about chatbots and artificial agents and "conversation as a platform." That idea is not new, right? I think I heard Bill Gates talking about it 15 years ago.

The successful applicant will join a group working on machine learning and artificial intelligence to healthcare and medicine. The proposed project involves the development of techniques for diabetes management, including vital sign feature extraction, semantic management, and temporal data. The postdoctoral fellow will work on an interdisciplinary project funded under H2020 (Patient Empowerment through Predictive PERsonalised decision support - PEPPER - 689810) involving strong interaction with physicians. The university and research group The research, knowledge transfer and innovation activities from the University of Girona is carried out through more than 100 research groups linked to 22 departments and 11 research institutes. There are also chairs, which play an important role to promote the study and research, and other structures such as observatories and laboratories.

If you wanted relief from stories about tyre factories and steel plants closing, you could try relaxing with a new 300-page report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch which looks at the likely effects of a robot revolution. But you might not end up reassured. Though it promises robot carers for an ageing population, it also forecasts huge numbers of jobs being wiped out: up to 35% of all workers in the UK and 47% of those in the US, including white-collar jobs, seeing their livelihoods taken away by machines. Haven't we heard all this before, though? From the luddites of the 19th century to print unions protesting in the 1980s about computers, there have always been people fearful about the march of mechanisation.

In the summer of 2015, we launched a new funding scheme called the Pioneer Award, to support innovative science. We're encouraging researchers to think big – the sky is the limit – and bring with them new ideas that could be game-changing for cancer research. To quickly recap on how this new scheme works, it's a'Dragon's Den'-like way of funding research: applications are judged anonymously, and short-listed researchers are given five minutes to pitch their ideas to a panel of experts. There's a pot of up to 200,000 to those who succeed. Back in December, we unveiled the first round of successful projects, and now we have the next batch of bright ideas.

In a span of two and a half hours, Microsoft packed a lot into the opening keynote of its Build 2016 conference. But it was the last video shown that seem to have the biggest impact on many of the viewers at home: the introduction of an AI that helps one of its blind developers "see." At the very end of its keynote, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reiterated that he wants technology to enhance the ways humans communicate. Though the many chat bots he introduced earlier seems technologically "smart," the framework behind it still needs the help of developers to continue improving on what has already been built. Don't miss our biggest TNW Conference yet!

Cloud application vendor Apttus is launching a new version of its quote-to-cash suite of applications that applies artificial intelligence from the Microsoft Azure Machine Learning service to help guide sales people to achieve higher performance. Launched today at the Microsoft Envision conference, the full suite of products is also notable for being available native on Azure as well as on the Salesforce platform. There are many customers, especially in Europe, that have no Salesforce presence and that really need quote-to-cash. Called the Apttus Intelligent Cloud, the new product applies artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies to discover and dynamically recommend actions that will help sales people increase the size and speed of deals. Apttus currently has six customers live with the new capabilities. Krappe says one early adopter expects to add between 1 and 2 percentage points to its total sales as a result of them improving the overall performance of its sales team.

Automated systems have already reshaped modern warfare, most notably with the widespread use of drones in conflict. Now, experts predict that advances in artificial intelligence could further change how we fight battles. The new frontiers of warfare are not without ethical questions. Many have already challenged whether the United States should use unmanned drones to kill terrorists. In this poll ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, TIME asks key questions about how readers think artificial intelligence will change warfare.