With Earth Day come and gone the initiative to save our planet is fresh in our minds. And that's not limited to global warming and putting a stop to pollution; poaching remains a big problem when it comes to preserving the world around us. Luckily researchers have been testing out how we can use scientists to help the fight against poaching. According to Science Daily, organizations such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Army Research Office have teamed up to look into how artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to stop poaching and illegal logging. Led by scientists at the University of South Carolina (USC), researchers have found ways to use game theory, or the mathematical theory of conflict and cooperation, to protect parks in a more proactive way.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Already home to the world's biggest skyscraper, Dubai has another tall order to fill: By 2030, its leader wants 25 percent of all trips on its roads to be done by driverless vehicles. Monday's announcement by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum came without warning and with few details, as is sometimes the case with the many aspirations of the leadership of the United Arab Emirates. In this car-crazed city-state of over 1.5 million registered vehicles, it's not unusual to see Ferraris idling alongside Lamborghinis at traffic lights. And Dubai already is home to a driverless Metro rail system, which carried 178 million riders in 2015. Smart-car technology is being used in some of the world's luxury vehicles, and it is advancing rapidly enough for the plan to become a reality -- or a nightmare for the thousands of taxi drivers who now plying the streets among the sleek skyscrapers in the UAE's commercial capital.

Ubisoft and Patrice Désilets, the creative director of Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2, have reached an agreement that gives Désilets ownership of a mysterious original IP, 1666 Amsterdam. Désilets and Ubisoft have a rocky, winding history: Désilets is recognized as the creator of the studio's most famous franchise, Assassin's Creed, but he left the company in 2010. Désilets joined THQ Montreal in 2011 where he started work on an original franchise that turned out to be 1666 Amsterdam. However, THQ famously went under in 2012 and sold off its assets in January 2013. The Montreal studio -- complete with 1666, Désilets and all -- was picked up by Ubisoft for 2.5 million.

When Zinedine Zidane, the then French captain, headbutted Italy's Marco Materazzi during the 2006 World Cup final, the clash quickly became one of the most infamous incidents in football history. What was not clear was what sparked the Frenchman's ire – Zidane said his mother had been insulted, a charge that Materazzi vigorously denied. The head-butt got Zidane sent off and Italy won the game. However, had there been technology there to identify what was said, the result could have been very different, Helen Bear believes. "If a machine lip-reader was in existence, the other player [could] have got sent off too so it would have been 10 men against each other in a World Cup final," she argues.

The finance world is cautiously optimistic about the future of artificial intelligence and how it can be used, but, there is more work needed on regulating the technology when it comes to world markets. "Financial institutions have been fined billions of dollars because of illegality and compliance breaches by traders. A logical response by banks is to automate as much decision-making as possible, hence the number of banks enthusiastically embracing AI and automation," said Baker and McKenzie head of financial services regulation Arun Srivastava. "But while conduct risk may be reduced, the unknown risks inherent in aspects of AI have not been eliminated." The law firm's research found more than 400 senior executives working in finance and fintech believe artificial intelligence (AI) will have the most impact on trading, financial analysis and IT over the next three years.

It's a topic that has been explored countless times in the annuls of science fiction...human dominance subsumed by ever more intelligent machines. Mankind, in an attempt to create the ultimate simple life where most tasks are carried out by untiring automatons, inadvertently creates its own ironic extinction. The signs are everywhere...Google's Self-Driving Car, fully-automated factories, and of course human-like robots (replicants?) These machines/cyborgs or whatever you decide to classify them as have been developing at a rapid pace within a timescale that is minute compared to the entire history of computing. Some may (hopefully misguidedly) suggest that we are headed towards a Technology Singularity where we've created artificial intelligence (AI) so powerful that it is capable of not only self-improvement of its own faculties but full replication in an endless array of iterations more intelligent than its previous versions.

The use of robots on the retail sales floor is the same sort of double-edged sword as when used for the warehouse. Some see them as capable of handling arduous processes to allow employees to focus on customer service. Others see robots as pure replacements, threatening to cut out the need for real live human staff. The latest robot to make an appearance at the front of the store is, if it catches on, likely to generate the same sort of controversy. A company called 4D Retail Technology Corp. has created a robot capable of automating the inventory process by rolling through the aisles and imaging every product and every barcode in a store.

The world's first cafe using the tiny domestic unmanned aircraft as servers has opened in a Dutch university. The pop-up drone cafe will be serving up all weekend as part of celebrations for the'Dream and Dare' festival marking the 60th anniversary of the Eindhoven University of Technology. The drone (pictured), nicknamed Blue Jay, resembles a small white flying saucer. It has a luminescent strip for eyes, flies to a table and hovers as it takes a client's order. The customer then points to the list to signal what they would like.

I'm often asked, as we move more and more to digital communications: what will happen to the people? What will happen to the people? As we move to robotics, automated agents, augmented and artificial intelligence, what will happen to the people. If we have no branches, no structures and no buildings that need humans, what will happen to the people. It's a question that always crops up as we move from one form of work to another.

For people living in a world without sound, sign language can make sure their points of view are heard. But outside of the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, this gesture-based language can lose its meaning. Now a pair of entrepreneurial technology students in the US has designed a pair of gloves to break down the communication barriers, by translating hand gestures into speech. US inventors have designed a pair of gloves, called'SignAloud', which translate the gestures of sign language to spoken English. The gloves (pictured) use embedded sensors to monitor the position and movement of the user's hands, while a central computer analyses the data and converts gestures to speech Called'SignAloud', the gloves use embedded sensors to monitor the position and movement of the user's hands.