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The Ant Colony System (ACS) is, next to Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and the MAX-MIN Ant System (MMAS), one of the most efficient metaheuristic algorithms inspired by the behavior of ants. In this article we present three novel parallel versions of the ACS for the graphics processing units (GPUs). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such work on the ACS which shares many key elements of the ACO and the MMAS, but differences in the process of building solutions and updating the pheromone trails make obtaining an efficient parallel version for the GPUs a difficult task. The proposed parallel versions of the ACS differ mainly in their implementations of the pheromone memory. The first two use the standard pheromone matrix, and the third uses a novel selective pheromone memory. Computational experiments conducted on several Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) instances of sizes ranging from 198 to 2392 cities showed that the parallel ACS on Nvidia Kepler GK104 GPU (1536 CUDA cores) is able to obtain a speedup up to 24.29x vs the sequential ACS running on a single core of Intel Xeon E5-2670 CPU. The parallel ACS with the selective pheromone memory achieved speedups up to 16.85x, but in most cases the obtained solutions were of significantly better quality than for the sequential ACS.

GV (formerly Google Ventures) is leading a $10 million investment in Abundant Robotics, a company building apple-picking robots that could eventually be adapted to harvest other fruits. Joining GV in the round were BayWa AG and Tellus partners along with the company's earlier backers Yamaha Motor Company, KPCB Edge and Comet Labs. Abundant Robotics Chief Executive and cofounder Dan Steere said his company began working with the apple industry four years ago to figure out how to automate the cumbersome task of picking apples. "It's very difficult to locate fruit that's ready to be picked within a canopy and then retrieve it without turning it into apple sauce," he said. Every fall in the US and in Australia, the company's engineers can be found in different orchards testing their technologies and working alongside farmers to understand what's still needed. The company's robots are designed to work around-the-clock, identifying and picking apples even in the dark of night.

Researchers at the University of Technology in Sydney in Australia have developed the new Shark Spotter algorithm, which uses video footage streamed from drones to detect sharks and alert swimmers. Researchers at the University of Technology in Sydney (UTS) in Australia have developed Shark Spotter, an algorithm that uses video footage streamed from drones to detect sharks and alert swimmers. The researchers say the algorithm is 90% accurate in distinguishing sharks from dolphins, rays, whales, and other marine life. They note the algorithm's accuracy is a significant improvement over human spotters using their naked eye from helicopters in flight, which are 18% accurate, or those spotting from fixed-wing aircraft, which are 12% accurate. They developed the app by flying drones over coastal waters and capturing about 8,000 images.

ARTIFICIAL Intelligence technology is being used by an Aussie startup to help select the healthiest embryos for use in IVF treatments. Life Whisperer is based in South Australia and uses a combination of computer vision, human analysis and machine learning techniques to identify healthy embryos for implantation. The non-invasive embryo selection technique applies key algorithms that recognise important information, including morphological features, to grade embryo quality. The company is looking to identify a commercial partner to conduct the next validation phase of its technology. Co-founder and Managing Director Dr Michelle Perugini said machine learning meant the system could efficiently study "tens of thousands" of retrospective cases and build a portfolio of information.

Acorns has today announced a new feature exclusive to Australian customers that provides personalised insights into their spending and saving. Using machine learning, the "My Finances" feature will be able to discover your spending patterns, automatically categorise your transactions and notify you if you're likely to spend more than you have in previous months. Acorns Australia CEO George Lucas says the idea for the feature was born out of Acorns' users. And we said could do that, but we can use machine learning," he said. "We can make the experience as easy as possible because part of saving is also learning about where you're spending your money, seeing if you can pick up where you may be wasting your money, and therefore help you save more.

An RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone arrived at Yokota Air Base Monday night, starting a five-month operation in Tokyo, the U.S. base announced. A Defense Ministry source said that the aircraft could be used to conduct surveillance of North Korea, over which political tensions have been ratcheted up over the past month. The aircraft is part of the 69th Reconnaissance Group Detachment 1 and provides near real-time aerial imagery reconnaissance support to U.S. and partner nations, according to the base's website. The aircraft was flown from its home at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to avoid typhoons there, the Stars and Stripes quoted Detachment 1 commander Col. Jeremy Fields as saying. The drones and members of the detachment normally travel from their Guam home base to operate out of Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture during the summer to avoid typhoons, but that wasn't possible last year or this year because of renovations to the runway at Misawa, the paper quoted Fields as saying.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the future for improving customer experience, according to home appliances manufacturer Fisher & Paykel. As a result, the New Zealand-based company is following up its cloud computing overhaul by looking into implementing both AI and self-learning systems to personalise some of its customer touch points, Rudi Khoury, former GM of customer experience and current GM of global sales at Fisher & Paykel, told ZDNet. "We're seeing automatic chatbots through Facebook coming up, AI live agents that are able to respond to 80 percent of enquiries without needing a human. I can see that really taking off in the next five years for sure," Khoury said. Fisher & Paykel has already improved its customer experience by overhauling its IT systems and moving them to the cloud, according to Khoury.

A new start-up lets users synthesise a person's speech from just a one minute-long recording of them talking. Using artificial intelligence (AI) the Lyrebird service uses a voice-imitation algorithm to mimic a person's voice and have it read any text with a given emotion. Although this voice-copying technology might be amusing it also has serious implications as users can essentially poach part of someone else's identity. The Lyrebird service synthesise a person's speech from just a one minute-long recording and can generate 1000 sentences in less than half a second (stock image) The Lyrebird service allows users to compress the individual characteristics of a voice into a single key which means users can generate 1000 sentences in less than half a second. Not only can users create voices but they can control the generated voice too - for example making it sound angry, sympathetic or stressed.

Host- LIS (Law, Innovation and Society Research Group, Newcastle University Law School) Tuesday 16 May 2017, 12:00-18:00 Venue: Newcastle Law School Conference Room Lunch provided from 12:00 The rapid emergence of Artificial Intelligence and'expert systems' poses wide-ranging and often entirely novel challenges for both the law and for society. This symposium aims to explore the nature of some of these problems, looking at their basis and their implications for the future; as well as the primary areas of focus for effective research into and regulation of this potentially epochal technology. The symposium will have a significant component of discussion, and all with an interest are welcome to join us and take part.