This book covers the topic of recommender systems comprehensively, starting with the fundamentals and then exploring the advanced topics. Algorithms and evaluation: These chapters discuss the fundamental algorithms in recommender systems, including collaborative filtering methods, content-based methods, knowledge-based methods, ensemble-based methods, and evaluation. Recommendations in specific domains and contexts: The context of a recommendation can be viewed as important side information that affects the recommendation goals. Different types of context such as temporal data, spatial data, social data, tagging data, and trustworthiness are explored. Advanced topics and applications: Various robustness aspects of recommender systems, such as shilling systems, attack models, and their defenses are discussed.

Editor's note, April 1, 2016: This project was formerly known as Project AIX and has now been renamed Project Malmo. In the airy, loft-like Microsoft Research lab in New York City, five computer scientists are spending their days trying to get a Minecraft character to climb a hill. That may seem like a pretty simple job for some of the brightest minds in the field, until you consider this: The team is trying to train an artificial intelligence agent to learn how to do things like climb to the highest point in the virtual world, using the same types of resources a human has when she learns a new task. That means that the agent starts out knowing nothing at all about its environment or even what it is supposed to accomplish. It needs to understand its surroundings and figure out what's important – going uphill – and what isn't, such as whether it's light or dark.

This is the latest installment in a regular series of conversations with William McDonough (@billmcdonough), designer, architect, author and entrepreneur. Joel Makower: Tell me about the innovation future roundtable you recently convened. Bill McDonough: I have been working with companies that are looking at the future of mobility in India, and designing factories and other things for them. The chairman said he would like to connect to some of the advanced thinking across many sectors and integrate that with some conversations that he could participate in. The first person I thought of for that was Jack Hidary.

Rembrandt was arguably the first artist to really master the "selfie," and he did so all the way back in the 1600s. Now, a team of technologists working with Microsoft are bringing Rembrandt's technique into the modern age--they have produced a 3D printed painting in the style of the Dutch master. "Our goal was to make a machine that works like Rembrandt," Emmanuel Flores, director of technology for the project, told the BBC. "We will understand better what makes a masterpiece a masterpiece." To accomplish this feat, data on Rembrandt's works was gathered by computers, which discovered patterns in how he would paint certain features, like facial features, for example. Then, machine-learning algorithms were created that could output a new portrait in the familiar Rembrandt style.

The European Union's digital chief wants search engines such as Alphabet Inc's Google and Microsoft's Bing to be more transparent about advertising in web search results but ruled out a separate law for web platforms. European Commission vice-president Andrus Ansip, who is overseeing a wide-ranging inquiry into how web platforms conduct their business, said on Friday the EU executive would not take a horizontal approach to regulating online services. "We will take a problem-driven approach," Ansip said. "It's practically impossible to regulate all the platforms with one really good single solution." Related: Do Google's'unprofessional hair' results show it is racist?

Automation is a growing phenomenon within many areas of scientific development especially within the area of research and development of new medicines. The pharmaceutical industry is constantly striving to create new drugs to combat and treat these diseases because of the research timescales and costs involved it's an increasingly difficult challenge and therefore improving the speed of the drug recovery process is of paramount importance. At The University of Manchester, a team of scientists has developed EVE, a scientist robot. EVE uses Artificial Intelligence to identify, sort and separate the compounds which can then help researchers narrow down new drug candidates faster. Artificial intelligence that robots like EVE possess ensures that the speed at which they can process formulae and combinations is much faster than the speed at which a human brain can function.

Armed drones could take to the air for testing alongside US fighter pilots as early as 2018. The Air Force's'Loyal Wingman' program aims to pair fifth generation fighter jets with unmanned older craft, using computer algorithms to give pilots control of the drones. The initiative would allow a drone to take the lead in navigating dangerous environments, pinpointing targets without putting a human pilot at risk. The Air Force's'Loyal Wingman' program aims to pair fifth generation fighter jets with unmanned older craft, using computer algorithms to give pilots remote control of the drones. The'Loyal Wingman' program would see the Air Force convert an older craft, like the F-16 warplane, into a semi-autonomous and unmanned fighter that flies alongside a fifth generation craft, like the F-35 jet.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your low-cost Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few 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. The Super Mini Cheetah was developed at MIT as a "low-cost, easily replicable" quadruped robot platform. The MIT Super Mini Cheetah is an inexpensive and lightweight quadrupedal robot that is capable of behaviors such as running, walking, jumping and turning.

AI experts believe that computers will write as well as humans within the next 15 years. This means that any student will be able to input a poorly-written essay into a software program, which will analyze the text and reconstruct it as well-written, grammatically correct text. Since we use calculators as an extension of our minds, shouldn't we also use AI software to become better writers? This is not a hypothetical question. Across the world, teams of computer scientists are racing at a breakneck speed to construct advanced artificial intelligence that can automate thinking and writing. Last month, AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence program created by Google, beat the world-champion Lee Sodel in Go, a game that is so complex that there are more choices available in a single game than there are atoms in the entire universe.

The debate over how robots could affect employment has been going on for more than a century. Those who rage against the machine say robots will steal our jobs, make us their slaves, and then kill us. Others believe robots are the key to ultimate freedom from work that humans find dull or dangerous. Some robots could climb stairs, others could pick up and place objects, while others could drive you around the sidewalk without you exerting any effort. The majority of executives at the conference explained how robots are here to rescue us from manual labor and will help to make our companies leaner, more profitable, more consistent, and more competitive.