China is pouring resources into artificial intelligence to nurture world-class companies that can compete with the likes of Google and IBM in building intelligence machines.(AP In China's quest to shed its reputation as a land of copycats, the world's second-biggest economy is pouring resources in to the hottest area in technology innovation: artificial intelligence. With the goal of nurturing world-class companies that can compete with the likes of Google and IBM in building intelligent machines, the Chinese leadership singled out AI as a key area of development in a report released during the National People's Congress in March. Soon after, the country's biggest technology companies -- Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent -- announced plans for AI laboratories and projects worth billions of dollars. Many analysts believe AI is one area China can excel.

At a demonstration of Amazon Web Services' new artificial intelligence image recognition tool last week, the deep learning analysis calculated with near certainty that a photo of speaker Glenn Gore depicted a potted plant. "It is very clever, it can do some amazing things but it needs a lot of hand holding still. AI is almost like a toddler. They can do some pretty cool things, sometimes they can cause a fair bit of trouble," said AWS' chief architect in his day two keynote at the company's summit in Sydney. Where the toddler analogy falls short, however, is that a parent can make a reasonable guess as to, say, what led to their child drawing all over the walls, and ask them why.

Over the past two decades or so eCommerce has undergone a major change. The speed of this change has been, and continues to be, amazing. The world wide web got invented in 1989, became available on the Internet in 1991; first web sites humbly started as additional marketing channels, with corporate web sites giving information on the company and a product catalogue; 1994 the Netscape browser arrived. In 1995 Amazon got founded – and the story started to take off. In 2000 we saw US online shopping eclipsing the 25 billion dollar mark.

TECHNOLOGY FOR PEOPLE Digital disruption is taking a new direction with people now shaping technology to fit our need. By amplifying people and putting the power into their hands, banks can deepen their role in consumers' lives, and firmly establish their place as partners in the new digital economy. HELP WRITE THE NEW RULES OF ENGAGEMENT OR RISK BEING REGULATED OUT THE UNCHARTED BANKERS SAY: • Industry regulations have not kept pace with technology advancement (66% globally, 82% in US). THE UNCHARTED TAKE THE LEAD TO SHAPE THE NEW RULES 75% of bankers agree they have a duty to be proactive in writing the rules. Freedom to innovate THOSE THAT DO EXPECT MORE: Opportunity to develop standards that others follow Expanded opportunities for trusted partnerships 7. 8www.accenture.com/bankingtechvision

Things change pretty much on a daily basis in the world of SEO. Since the announcement of Google's AI machine learning algorithm – RankBrain – in 2015, one of the most discussed topics in SEO galleries is: With Google admitting RankBrain being one of the top three ranking factors, these discussions have become even more worthwhile. In past 3-4 months, we also saw a spike in the number of SERPed members asking the same question. And, multiple posts claiming 2017 as the year of AI and Voice Search, we think it is the right time to dive deeper to understand more about it. To get more clarity on this topic, we decided to go straight to the big guns and find out what they think about it. The responses from each expert are compiled below. Fasten your seat belts and get ready for an awesome ride. Albert Mora is the CEO and co-founder of Seolution, an SEO agency for Shopify e-commerce sites. He has been doing SEO from 1997 and has around 20 years of experience. Follow Albert on Twitter here. Since the beginning of the Internet, artificial intelligence has played a relevant role in the operation of search engines. Logically, the algorithms have been evolving, but the fundamental underlying principle remains the same: search engines want to deliver quality search results to the users. For this reason, if you want a long term sustainable SEO results, you must think about the users first, not about the search engines. Alex has more than 15 years of experience in Digital Marketing, and he is working online since 2002.

A tsunami of change is already arriving. Artificial intelligence is now capable of doing desk jobs that were previously safe from automation. The social and economic effects remain to be seen, but is AI what we think it is? Workplaces that include artificial intelligence (AI) will soon be reality, say researchers who believe the rise of AI in all areas of life is not only inevitable, it's set to reshape the way we think about consciousness and human identity. From Metropolis to 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Terminator, robots and super-intelligent AIs in film have seduced and terrified our collective consciousness, having an impact on how we view artificial intelligence.

Legal services are notoriously complicated, not to mention costly for those who need to access them. However, Chrissie Lightfoot, a leading futurist, entrepreneur and lawyer, has come up with an innovative solution. Instead of forking out for a human advisor, clients can now use Robot Lawyer LISA, an impartial Legal Intelligence Support Assistant, to draw up Non-Disclosure Agreements. The artificially intelligent platform can create legally binding documents in under seven minutes at absolutely no cost to the user. Allowing individuals and businesses to use LISA to protect themselves without any prior legal knowledge. LISA is also the first law robot to provide unbiased and objective assistance to both parties, allowing users to avoid having to engage traditional human lawyers on either side.

One Monday afternoon in April 2013, 19-year-old Jordan Green was working in a liquor store in Adelaide, Australia, when two men in balaclavas holding a shotgun entered the store, jumped the counter, held the gun to his head, and demanded his co-worker open the store's safe. It isn't the typical foundation for a company, but this is how Jemsoft was born. As a pragmatist, Green told ZDNet that he approached the situation by questioning how they entered the store with automatic doors and security cameras. Fortunately, Green was also a programmer involved in robotics. "The question in my head was why is it that someone who so clearly was not here to grab a slab could come into the local bottle-o and threaten my life and the life of my co-worker -- who to my knowledge has not returned to work. You could say that I took a pretty radical career change because I then left uni, left that job, and tried to build a company, which is not something a sane person would do," he said.

If video game consoles were cars, Microsoft's Xbox division just revealed its Ferrari. The tech giant revealed the first details of Project Scorpio -- a high-end model of its Xbox One video game console launching during the Christmas holiday season -- in a report published Thursday to games website Eurogamer. Eurogamer says they traveled to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., to get a first look at Scorpio as well as talk to the console's top creators. According to tech specs revealed in the report, Scorpio will boast an improved processors (31% faster than Xbox One), and more memory compared to its chief rival, Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro, launched last holiday. Scorpio will also support 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs, and runs its own custom-built graphics processing unit.

Apple is being sued by Australia, after its phones started breaking with no warning. A new case from the country's consumer watchdog accuses the company of "bricking", or remotely disabling, phones with a software update. That follows the controversy over what was dubbed "Error 53" – named after the message that was displayed after the update arrived and wouldn't allow people to use their phone. Specifically, the problem arose when people had their screens fixed by a non-Apple repairer. That triggered what Apple said was a security measure, but others complained was an unfair change, which meant that the phones wouldn't turn back on and couldn't be fixed again by Apple. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.