If a quiet theme can be found in Washington's debates over taxes, trade, budgets, and regulations, it is the difficulty of settling on actions that will bring back the high productivity that the United States enjoyed just 20 years ago. Productivity growth, or a rising output per worker, has slowed, as it has in much of the world, reducing living standards. What can bring it back? The first step is for elected leaders to focus on ways to foster innovation, such as investments in education, infrastructure, and research. One model for such a singular political focus is New Zealand.

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.

If you make your living as a corporate slave, you're probably familiar with business travel. This is where companies like Amex fleece people provide a valuable service by selling corporate flights and hotels at the highest rates possible. It seems like at no point in the transaction do they ever consider trying to save companies money but instead, try to sell the most expensive tickets and accommodations they can find. Generally, that has been our experience dealing with corporate travel agencies (or any travel agent for that matter). We took a stab at artificial intelligence in travel because we believe the use of AI in the travel industry should be more than just suggesting destinations but also, cutting down the cost to travel by hopefully getting rid of the middleman middle-person entirely.

Chris Skinner is surprised when he hears that he's popular among bankers. Surprised because the messages he delivers are often uncomfortable. Skinner intends to push bankers out of their comfort zone. While never a banker himself, Skinner has worked on banking projects for several technology companies before establishing his niche as a fintech blogger (TheFinanser.com) His specialty is discerning relevant chords amid all the noise regarding technology and its impact on financial services.

A helicopter pelts Guam's trees with poison-baited dead mice to fight the voracious brown tree snake. A special boat with giant winglike nets stuns and catches Asian carp in the U.S. Midwest. In the fight against alien animals that invade and overrun native species, the weird and wired wins. "Critters are smart -- they survive," said biologist Rob "Goose" Gosnell, head of U.S. Department of Agriculture's wildlife services in Guam, where brown tree snakes have gobbled up nearly all the native birds. "Trying to outsmart them is hard to do." Invasive species are plants and animals that thrive in areas where they don't naturally live, usually brought there by humans, either accidentally or intentionally.

If you make your living as a corporate slave, you're probably familiar with business travel. This is where companies like Amex fleece people provide a valuable service by selling corporate flights and hotels at the highest rates possible. It seems like at no point in the transaction do they ever consider trying to save companies money but instead, try to sell the most expensive tickets and accommodations they can find. Generally, that has been our experience dealing with corporate travel agencies (or any travel agent for that matter). We took a stab at artificial intelligence in travel because we believe the use of AI in the travel industry should be more than just suggesting destinations but also, cutting down the cost to travel by hopefully getting rid of the middleman middle-person entirely.

Artificial Intelligence is already impacting every industry through automation and machine learning, bringing concerns that AI is on the fast track to replacing many jobs. But these fears aren't new, says Dan Jackson, director of Enterprise Technology at Crestron, a company that designs workplace technology. "I'd argue this is no different than when we moved from an agricultural to an industrial economy at the turn of the last century. The percentage of people working in agriculture significantly decreased, and it was a big shift, but we still have plenty of jobs 100 years later," he says. Anytime society experiences a major technological advancement, we need to be prepared for it to change the way we live and work.

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.

Troubled by something deeply unethical going on at work? Or maybe you're plotting to leak sensitive information on the company that just sacked you? Either way, you best think twice before making your next move because an all-seeing artificial intelligence might just be analysing every email you send, every file you upload, every room you scan into – even your coffee routine. The latest wave of cyber-defence technology employs machine learning to monitor use of the ever-expanding number of smart household objects connected to the Internet of Things – shutting down hackers before they've broken into corporate databases or whistleblowers before they've forwarded on information to the media. One of the leading proponents is cyber-defence company Darktrace, founded in 2013 by former British intelligence officers in Cambridge and today featuring 370 employees in 23 offices globally.