Storm damage repairs and preventative maintenance on power lines and trees are two of the most important tasks utility companies take on, requiring a large amount of time and budget. Currently, ground crews inspect assets manually or via helicopter, and then based on their observations, they'll identify areas that need attention. New technology on the horizon will help protect the grid from potentially dangerous storms and trees that pose a risk of falling. Affordable drone technology, coupled with big data software, is paving the way for a more detailed, holistic approach to storm damage assessment and utility maintenance. Through the collaboration of Edison Electric Institute and Palo Alto-based drone service company Sharper Shape, the EEI Sharper Utility partnership was formed to fast-track long-distance commercial drone inspections of power lines in the U.S. Drone flights have already found their footing in Europe with help from Sharper Shape's European affiliate and are looking to make an impact on the utility industries in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

So far I have talked about decision trees and ensembles. But I hope, I have made you understand the logic behind these concepts without getting too much into the mathematical details. In this post lets get into action, I will be implementing the concepts that we learned in these two blog posts. The only concept that I haven't discussed about is SVM. I suggest you to watch Professor Andrew Ng's week 7 videos on Coursera.

April 29, 2016 - With an ever-increasing volume of electronic data being collected by the healthcare system, researchers are exploring the use of machine learning--a subfield of artificial intelligence--to improve medical care and patient outcomes. An overview of machine learning and some of the ways it could contribute to advancements in plastic surgery are presented in a special topic article in the May issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). "Machine learning has the potential to become a powerful tool in plastic surgery, allowing surgeons to harness complex clinical data to help guide key clinical decision-making," write Dr. Jonathan Kanevsky of McGill University, Montreal, and colleagues. They highlight some key areas in which machine learning and "Big Data" could contribute to progress in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Machine learning analyzes historical data to develop algorithms capable of knowledge acquisition.

Editor's note: This month marks the centennial of the birth of Claude Shannon, the American mathematician and electrical engineer whose groundbreaking work laid out the theoretical foundation for modern digital communications. To celebrate the occasion, we're republishing online a memorable profile of Shannon that IEEE Spectrum ran in its April 1992 issue. Written by former Spectrum editor John Horgan, who interviewed Shannon at his home in Winchester, Mass., the profile reveals the many facets of Shannon's character: While best known as the father of information theory, Shannon was also an inventor, tinkerer, puzzle solver, and prankster. The 1992 profile included a portrait of Shannon taken by Boston-area photographer Stanley Rowin. On this page we're reproducing that portrait along with other Shannon photos by Rowin that Spectrum has never published. Shannon died in 2001 at age 84 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. He is regarded as one of the greatest electrical engineering heroes of all time.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk introduces the Model X. I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful with artificial intelligence...With artificial intelligence, we're summoning the demon. You know those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram, and the holy water, and he's like -- Yeah, he's sure he can control the demon?

Even with bottled oxygen and elite training, there are underwater locations that lie well beyond our physical capabilities. But via haptic feedback technology and artificial intelligence, Stanford University's humanoid diving robot is now putting the ocean's depths within human reach. In its maiden expedition, the OceanOne droid has just scoured an untouched shipwreck off the coast of France and returned with a delicate, 17th century vase in its grip. Researchers are now eyeing future voyages to coral reefs, oil rigs and underwater disaster zones. With our deep sea diving capabilities only taking us so far, we have long sought to send robots down below to do the investigating for us.

A new invention has emerged from the sea as a robotic humanoid capable to explore the ocean while its driver is safe into a boat. This is not a dream but a reality taken off from a science-fiction page. This machine was designed by Oussama Kathib, a professor at Stanford University in the field of computer science in an attempt to develop better ways to study the deepest oceans and all treasures the sea may hide. It was created as the perfect representation of the human being.The machine was named OceanOne and its capability for underwater exploration is incredible. This robot has two hands, a stereo vision and the best of all: the robot driver can feel what the robot is doing without the dangers or time limits associated with diving.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your non-flexible Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. Friend o' the blog Markus Waibel sent us this video of the craziest ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena project (so far): the monocopter, which has one prop and nothing else. We're told that Markus bet that this thing could only work in theory, and lost: This video introduces the monospinner, the mechanically simplest controllable flying machine in existence.

Tech giants are active players at the cognitive technologies scene. Alphabet and Facebook proved themselves active acquirers and investors in cognitive tech. Supercomputers, robots and drones are among themes approached by Internet giants. Microsoft, however, seems to be following a differed path: it integrates cognitive technologies into traditional products and makes them smarter. Bill Gates coined the concept of'digital nervous system (DNS)... that ... [provides] a well-integrated flow of information to the right part of the organization at the right time'.

In recent blogs, I wrote about using codified narrative as a form of data. I also discussed using attribution models to systematically evaluate codified narrative for ontological constructs: e.g. I provide a brief overview of these topics a bit later in the blog. The third important piece to make use of narrative data involves "attribution profiling" in a process that I call "catching scent." Following the odour of data involves establishing a scent and then searching for it. After attribution models create profiles from the codified narrative, I have the search engine hunt for similar profiles. I don't consider the process particularly original or creative.