This kind of question has been on IQ tests for years and the answer, it turns out, depends a good deal on which era you live in. Back in the down-home, cotton-spinning, 19th century you'd be right in thinking you use dogs to hunt rabbits. Shift forward to the glass-fronted skyscrapers of the 20th century Information Age and there was a new right answer; they are both mammals. But, as humans leapfrog into the 21st century of Artificial Intelligence (AI), robots and machine learning, is there an even newer answer? And if so, what is it?

In the hope of bringing internet access to even the most remote corners of the globe, Google parent Alphabet's'Loon' project has taken a big step closer. Alphabet said artificial intelligence-infused navigation software has significantly sped up plans, helping to smartly guide high-altitude balloons to improve coverage. While the firm has not said when it expects the balloons to be up and running, Astro Teller, head of the team at Alphabet unit X said: 'We are looking to move quickly, but to move thoughtfully.' Alphabet said artificial intelligence-infused navigation software has significantly sped up plans, helping to smartly guide high-altitude balloons to improve coverage. Teller said: 'Our timelines are starting to move up on how we can do more for the world sooner.'

Soaring over the world's highest buildings and racing a solar-powered car across the desert may not be on your vacation itinerary this summer, but you can still see what such experiences might be like, thanks to the spectacular new IMAX film, "Dream Big: Engineering Our World." The movie takes audiences from Dubai to Australia, while sharing stirring stories about the impact engineers have on society. Narrated by Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges, it celebrates the inspiring work and people behind these engineering feats. Featured footage includes the Great Wall of China and the Golden Gate Bridge, not to mention an underwater robot developed by a team of students from an underprivileged high school in Phoenix. Made up primarily of Mexican immigrants, the robotics team entered its creation in a competition and succeeded against all odds.

The Defense Department is likely within 18 months of introducing autonomous cybersecurity tools that will be capable of augmenting human analysts by predicting threats, including insider activity, and dynamically isolating parts of the network that may come under attack, the department's outgoing chief information officer said Thursday. Terry Halvorsen, speaking to reporters during his last media roundtable before retiring at the end of the month, said as the department continues deployment of its 12 Joint Regional Security Stacks--a $1.6 billion effort to eliminate hundreds of disparate firewalls with centrally managed commercial security appliances and network monitoring tools--the next major step will be the deployment and testing of AI-based security applications. "Given the volume [of attacks] and where I see the threat moving it will be impossible for humans by themselves to keep pace. We can and we're very close to being able to put more autonomy into the security tools, and we will get to the point within the next 18 months where AI is becoming a key factor in augmenting the human analyst in making those decisions about what to do," Halvorsen said. Halvorsen recently hosted a special meeting of the Five Eyes alliance (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States), plus Germany, Japan, and NATO, at which AI-based cybersecurity was discussed in detail. "This is very real inside the department.

For years organisations around the world have tried to in vain to become a paper-less organisation. The recent surge in digitisation and mobilisation of processes has helped bring many closer, but very few have actually achieved this goal. In fact, it's far more accurate in my view to talk about being a less-paper-reliant organisation than a paper-less one. Many, many organisations still use paper for one reason or another. The question I'd like to raise today, is whether we'll be having the same conversation and experience as regards our people because AI and robots continue their advance?

Exari, the leading provider of enterprise contract management software, announced today that together with IACCM it will host a live and complimentary webinar titled "An Artificial Intelligence Survival Guide for Contracts Professionals," on Tuesday February 28, from 11:00AM to 12:00PM Eastern Standard Time. The webinar will offer expert advice from Jamie Wodetzki, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Exari and Tim Cummins, CEO of IACCM. Interested professionals can register for the webinar here. "We are in a golden age of machine learning," said Jamie Wodetzki. "Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming our daily lives and our professional careers. AI has entered into the contract management space and is already giving us new and different ways to explore key facets of contract documents."

When Worlds Collide, the 1951 Sci Fi film, painted a rather gloomy vision of the future of mankind on earth. However, the prospects for blended reality, in which the physical and digital worlds collide, couldn't be more promising. By fusing the virtual and real worlds, the possibilities are endless. By eliminating filters and limitations, blended reality enables expression at the speed of thought to improve experiences and inspire new technology. Using healthcare as an example, blended reality has significant implications for more personalized care, prevention and treatment by converging human biology, real-world context and technology advancements.

While the latter happened IRL in late 2016, a lot of the film's other future predictions were a little off. Though what's not too far fetched is the idea of robots, or artificial intelligence, working its way into our very real and ordinary lives in the not too distant future. Self-driving cars are already a thing, and that's only the beginning. "Artificial Intelligence (or AI) is likely to do to white collar jobs like how machines have been doing blue collar work. In other words, just like our brawns have been digitised, so will our brains be," Anders Sorman-Nilsson, global futurist and TEDx speaker told The Huffington Post Australia. Sorman-Nilsson is the author of Seamless: The Futurephile's Guide To Leading Digital Adaptation And Human Transformation.

Currently, IP Australia's online virtual assistant powered by Nuance's Nina technology delivers a dynamic and engaging customer experience that lets customers easily understand trademark, patent, designs and plant breeder's rights processes. The human elements of dialogue and personalised interaction connect customers to the right information and tools, which translates into immediate, easy and effective self-servicing and increased customer satisfaction. At present, Alex is capable of answering IP rights questions in layman's terms, minimising customer confusion and maximising successful first-time transactions.

SAN FRANCISCO--Cryptographers said at the RSA Conference Tuesday they're skeptical that advances in quantum computing and artificial intelligence will profoundly transform computer security. "I'm skeptical there will be much of an impact," Ron Rivest, a MIT professor and inventor of several symmetric key encryption algorithms, said early at the annual Cryptographers' Panel here. Susan Landau, a professor who specializes in cybersecurity policy and computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said that while artificial intelligence can be helpful when it comes to processing lots of data effectively, she doesn't think it will be useful in fingering out series attacks or anomalous situations. Adi Shamir, Borman Professor of Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute, said he was optimistic about AI's potential when it comes to defense – anything that involves finding deviations in behavior – but said he doubts it can ever be used in offensive sense, such as in identifying zero days, something he said requires more ingenuity and originality. The discussion was steered by a report recently released by the Global Risk Institute on the emergence of quantum computing technologies.