On November 15th, my credit risk analytics course will be available as e-Learning. Send me an email at Bart.Baesens@gmail.com Bart Baesens holds a master's degree in Business Engineering (option: Management Informatics) and a PhD in Applied Economic Sciences from KU Leuven University (Belgium). He is currently an associate professor at KU Leuven, and a guest lecturer at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom). He has done extensive research on data mining and its applications.

China and Russia said Monday that the South China Sea dispute should not be internationalized and called for its settlement based on negotiation and consultation, Beijing's official Xinhua News reported. The comments come at time when the United States has beefed up its military presence in the contested region in a bid to help the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries tackle China's assertiveness. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov made the comments during a meeting on Monday. Wang insisted that China was protecting its rights and interests in South China Sea, and was free to choose how to resolve tensions in the area, Xinhua reported. The world's second largest economy's refusal of the Philippines' proposed international arbitration case over the matter was meant to uphold the dignity and authority of the law, Wang said, adding that China and Russia should be cautious against abuses of mandatory arbitration. Meanwhile, Hugo Swire, the British minister of state responsible for East Asia, said earlier in the day that a ruling -- expected in May or early June -- in the Philippines' international arbitration case against China's South China Sea claims must be binding.

Quietly, Australian postal engineers are building the future. Delivery drones were born first as whimsy and then as marketing, lofty ambitions placed on clumsy, flying toys. We saw them in commercials as gimmicks and on 60 Minutes as a promise of the future. And then, slowly, the flash faded. Amazon's multirotor machine gained a bulky, plane-like body.

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

The world has seen numerous major cyber attacks in the past couple of years, with targets ranging from government agencies to health insurers to entertainment companies and even Panamanian law firms. A group of scientists at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) are working to create a line of defense against these threats to privacy and security. They've developed an AI that can detect attacks on networks as they happen, 85 percent of the time. Our biggest ever edition of TNW Conference is fast approaching! AI2, short for Artificial Intelligence Squared, looks at data to detect suspicious activity.

IT and analytics managers struggling with all the data flooding into their organizations may find it hard to ignore the increased marketing push machine learning tools are getting from technology vendors. And for good reason: Running automated algorithms designed to learn on their own as they churn through large data sets can accelerate data mining and predictive analytics applications -- and give users information they might not get otherwise. But companies looking to take advantage of machine learning often face a substantial learning curve. For starters, a lot of big data infrastructure technologies -- Hadoop, the Spark processing engine and related open source software in particular -- typically underlie machine learning efforts. In many cases, that means building a suitable data processing and management architecture from scratch.

Niall Dunne is the Chief Sustainability Officer for BT, working with BT's Chief Executive, Chairman and executive management team to bring the company's purpose, to use the power of communications to make a better world, to life. Before joining BT in 2011, Niall was Managing Director in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Saatchi & Saatchi. Prior to that, Dunne was an executive at Accenture, where he helped establish the company's climate change and sustainability practice. Dunne has written and spoken about the power of communications to tackle major social, environmental and economic problems. Niall was vice chair of the WEF's Global Agenda Council on Sustainable Consumption 2012-14 and joined the WEF Global Agenda Council on Climate Change in 2014.

Of the all the burning issues discussed at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year, one that got top billing was the promise and peril of the "Fourth Industrial Revolution." What does this Fourth Industrial Revolution mean for enterprises and their various stakeholders? What should they do to keep pace with it and create competitive advantage to come out ahead? The Third Industrial Revolution--the digital age that began in the mid-20th century--was about computerization. The Fourth Industrial Revolution we are experiencing today builds on this first wave of computerization with the latest, rapidly evolving and disruptive advances in technology: the Internet of Things, the Industrial Internet, robotic process automation, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, cyber-physical systems and connected wearable devices.

Chances are, you're already hip-deep in machine-learning applications. It's how Google Photo organizes those pictures from your vacation in Spain. It's how Facebook suggests tags for the pictures you took at last week's soccer match. It's how the cars of nearly every major automaker can help you avoid unsafe lane changes. Machine learning – which enables a computer to learn without new programming – is exploding in its ability to handle highly complex tasks.

Using hand gestures when we talk is an ordinary part of communication between humans, adding emphasis and flavor to our speech. It's second nature for us, but can robots be taught to take on such a human-like habit? Now, researchers have found that when humanoid robots talk with their hands, we understand them just as well as we do our fellow human beings. Humanoid robots, or avatars, have been around for several decades and are becoming big business. From artificial intelligence to social media and psychotherapy to high-end video games, they are used to sell things, to solve problems, to teach us and to entertain us. As they become more sophisticated and more sought after, getting your message across with your avatar is becoming more important than ever.