The internal Google email chain also notes that several big tech players competed to win the Project Maven contract. Other tech firms such as Amazon were in the running, one Google executive involved in negotiations wrote. Rather than serving solely as a minor experiment for the military, Google executives on the thread stated that Project Maven was "directly related" to a major cloud computing contract worth billions of dollars that other Silicon Valley firms are competing to win. The emails further note that Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing arm of Amazon, "has some work loads" related to Project Maven. Jane Hynes, a spokesperson for Google Cloud, emailed The Intercept to say that the company stands by the statement given to the New York Times this week that "the new artificial intelligence principles under development precluded the use of A.I. in weaponry."

The promise of oceanic discovery has intrigued scientists and explorers, whether to study underwater ecology and climate change, or to uncover natural resources and historic secrets buried deep at archaeological sites. To meet the challenge of accessing oceanic depths, Stanford University, working with KAUST's Red Sea Research Center and MEKA Robotics, developed Ocean One, a bimanual force-controlled humanoid robot that affords immediate and intuitive haptic interaction in oceanic environments.

A new study exploring depths of the Gulf of Oman revealed a massive increase in the size of its "dead zone," an area with too little oxygen for the survival of marine life. First spotted nearly half a century ago, dead-zones, aka oxygen minimum zones or OMZs, were flagged as a major threat to marine biology. They occur naturally at depths ranging from 700 to 2500 feet due to changes in the level of atmospheric oxygen and have been located in three to four parts of the world including the Gulf of Oman which shares its waters with the Arabian Sea. Now, that dead-zone appears to have grown bigger than what was previously thought. During a recent study, scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) sent two underwater robots, dubbed Seagliders, into the gulf to create a detailed picture of oxygen levels and the mechanics that mix oxygen and other nutrients into the water.

Authorities in Riyadh have called on drone enthusiasts to register with authorities prior to operating the aerial devices, after a toy drone was reportedly shot down near the royal palace in the capital. On Saturday, videos posted online purported to show Saudi security forces shooting down the drone near King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's palace, with heavy gunfire. Riyadh police said security forces responded to an unauthorised, small drone-type toy after spotting it near a security point in Khuzama neighbourhood. It was not clear who was operating the device. A spokesperson for the interior ministry said a framework regulating the use of drones was in "its final stages", state-run SPA news agency reported on Sunday.

A top secret billion-dollar spy satellite plummeted into the Indian Ocean after a SpaceX mission over the weekend, but Elon Musk's company has insisted they are not to blame. The satellite, codenamed Zuma, launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Sunday night, but it reportedly failed to remain in orbit, officials said Wednesday. The highly classified satellite launched by ended up plummeting into the Indian Ocean, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News. A top secret billion-dollar spy satellite plummeted into the Indian Ocean after a botched SpaceX mission over the weekend, but Elon Musk's company has insisted they are not to blame. Lawmakers and congressional staffers from the Senate and the House have been briefed about the botched mission, some of the officials told the Wall Street Journal.

Astronauts are getting a mouth-watering haul with the latest Earth-to-space delivery - pizza and ice cream. A commercial supply ship arrived at the International Space Station on Tuesday, two days after launching from Virginia. Besides equipment and experiments, the Orbital ATK capsule holds chocolate and vanilla ice cream for the six station astronauts, as well as make-your-own flatbread pizzas. Italy's Paolo Nespoli used the space station's robot arm to grab the cargo ship, as they zoomed 260 miles above the Indian Ocean Astronauts always crave pizza in orbit, but it's been particularly tough for Italy's Paolo Nespoli. He's been up there since July and has another month to go.

We take a look at categories where AI startups are beginning to emerge. A majority of them are in the early stages of funding. We take a look at categories where AI startups are beginning to emerge. A majority of them are in the early stages of funding. Artificial Intelligence is being hailed as the new linchpin of the tech industry.

Participants run ahead of Puerto de San Lorenzo's fighting bulls during the third bull run of the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, northern Spain. Each day at 8:00 am hundreds of people race with six bulls, charging along a winding, 848.6-metre (more than half a mile) course through narrow streets to the city's bull ring, where the animals are killed in a bullfight or corrida, during this festival, immortalised in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises" and dating back to medieval times and also featuring religious processions, folk dancing, concerts and round-the-clock drinking. Iraqi women, who fled the fighting between government forces and Islamic State (IS) group jihadists in the Old City of Mosul, cry as they stand in the city's western industrial district awaiting to be relocated

Tropical cyclone wind-intensity prediction is a challenging task considering drastic changes climate patterns over the last few decades. In order to develop robust prediction models, one needs to consider different characteristics of cyclones in terms of spatial and temporal characteristics. Transfer learning incorporates knowledge from a related source dataset to compliment a target datasets especially in cases where there is lack or data. Stacking is a form of ensemble learning focused for improving generalization that has been recently used for transfer learning problems which is referred to as transfer stacking. In this paper, we employ transfer stacking as a means of studying the effects of cyclones whereby we evaluate if cyclones in different geographic locations can be helpful for improving generalization performance. Moreover, we use conventional neural networks for evaluating the effects of duration on cyclones in prediction performance. Therefore, we develop an effective strategy that evaluates the relationships between different types of cyclones through transfer learning and conventional learning methods via neural networks.

Stephen Colbert kicks up his feet at the Ed Sullivan Theater, where he tapes "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert." Stephen Colbert kicks up his feet at the Ed Sullivan Theater, where he tapes "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert." (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Stephen Colbert's desktop computer monitor is ringed with reminders -- Post-it notes ("Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God," Pierre Teilhard de Chardin), keepsakes (cards from musicians Regina Spektor and Jack White), directives ("Ask yourself this question: Is my attitude worth catching?"), When not in use, Colbert's computer screen defaults to a live feed of the Earth taken from the International Space Station. Right now, the view has just crossed the Nile, the sun is setting and clouds are casting long shadows across the Red Sea. Colbert looks at these images whenever he's feeling anxious. There's the whole world, he tells himself.