In an industry known for its love of buzzwords and hype, artificial intelligence (AI) has become marketing's new'big data'. But where big data ultimately led to new layers of complexity, AI promises the opposite. Big data forced marketers to become data scientists (or hire them, if they could be found), but AI holds out the hope that marketers may get to go back to doing what they signed up for the in the first place. Recent months have seen technology providers such as Salesforce, Oracle and Microsoft bring new AI-based technologies to market, promising to derive insights and improve conversions by mimicking the processes of the human brain in software. Salesforce, for example, is rolling out its Einstein AI technology to provide functions such as product recommendations within the Commerce Cloud, email content recommendations within its Marketing Cloud, and predictive forecasting tools for sales managers with its Sales Cloud.

Dugong expert Dr Amanda Hodgson estimates she has stared at more than 30,000 photographs of blue water. "It's really taxing on your eyes and it's hard to maintain concentration." The researcher from WA's Murdoch University has been scanning pictures captured by aerial drones in a search for dugongs, to work out their population, size and location. Globally dugongs are classed as "vulnerable to extinction" and are found in waters off the northern half of Australia. "There are areas where they're quite vulnerable because their habitat overlaps with coastal development."

Queensland is preparing for driverless and connected vehicles, with plans under way for what the state government called the largest on-road testing trial in Australia. State Main Roads and Road Safety Minister Mark Bailey announced that Ipswich, southeast of Brisbane, would host trials over the next four years on vehicles and infrastructure that can talk to one another, as well as tests on highly automated vehicles. The trials form part of the Cooperative and Automated Vehicle Initiative (CAVI), and will see the state government recruit around 500 Ipswich motorists to have their vehicles retrofitted with cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) technology. "These C-ITS devices work by providing safety warnings to the driver about a range of conditions -- for example, a pedestrian crossing at a signalised intersection, a red light runner, or a queue ahead that isn't visible to a driver," Bailey explained. "Our interest in testing these vehicles is to help understand the implications for our infrastructure and drivers, and the improvements to automated vehicle performance when the vehicle can talk to other vehicles and infrastructure."

Facial recognition software is most commonly known as a tool to help police identify a suspected criminal by using machine learning algorithms to analyze his or her face against a database of thousands or millions of other faces. The larger the database, with a greater variety of facial features, the smarter and more successful the software becomes – effectively learning from its mistakes to improve its accuracy. Now, this type of artificial intelligence is starting to be used in fighting a specific but pervasive type of crime – illegal fishing. Rather than picking out faces, the software tracks the movement of fishing boats to root out illegal behavior. And soon, using a twist on facial recognition, it may be able to recognize when a boat's haul includes endangered and protected fish.

Townsville MP Scott Stewart reportedly wants the Queensland Police Force to look into the use of drone technology in an effort to curb what has been called a crime crisis in the state's north. According to local media, the MP believes drones are considerably cheaper than helicopters and can be launched within seconds -- travelling in excess of 100 kilometres per hour, with a range of around 7 kilometres -- from a police vehicle. "What I've been trying to do is look at as many different solutions as possible, and cutting-edge drone technology is so much cheaper than a police helicopter," Stewart is quoted as saying. "We need to use the technology now and in the future to fight crime, not costly and old technology like helicopters." Stewart has reportedly put forward his proposal to newly appointed Police Minister Mark Ryan, who is expected to raise the left-field idea with senior police on Thursday.

The same Microsoft technology currently used by healthcare organizations and yes, robots, is now being tested throughout the summer months by Cricket Australia, making it the first cricketing nation to integrate the company's team and player performance platform into its decision-making processes across fitness, game strategy, player recovery and team selection. As part of the new deal with Microsoft, Cricket Australia is now one of a few sports organizations worldwide experimenting with the new platform. At the recent Microsoft Australia Developer Conference, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said he was "glad" with how Cricket Australia was planning to integrate "machine learning" into its overarching strategy. "Cricket is one of the richest sports when it comes to using machine data. But how could you harness the power of data to even start having a more intelligent informed conversation about performance of teams, performance of players?"

New Zealand-based drone manufacturer Altus Intelligence wants to make sure its US$39,000 survey drones don't end up as rubble. Most of Altus' customers use its flagship drone, the Long Range Extreme Weather (LRX), for construction and engineering surveying/mapping and expect a rugged, dependable vehicle to get the job done. That's where the LRX's three separate fail-safe systems come in. The first is a triple auto pilot design, meaning that if anything goes wrong with one of the GPS streams, the other two will take over. The LRX is also armed with eight staggered propellers.

Facial recognition software is most commonly known as a tool to help police identify a suspected criminal by using machine learning algorithms to analyze his or her face against a database of thousands or millions of other faces. The larger the database, with a greater variety of facial features, the smarter and more successful the software becomes – effectively learning from its mistakes to improve its accuracy. Now, this type of artificial intelligence is starting to be used in fighting a specific but pervasive type of crime – illegal fishing. Rather than picking out faces, the software tracks the movement of fishing boats to root out illegal behavior. And soon, using a twist on facial recognition, it may be able to recognize when a boat's haul includes endangered and protected fish.

Days after unveiling the NSW Future Transport Technology Roadmap, Andrew Constance addressed the Salesforce Government Speaker Series. Tech will increasingly have a central role in the future of transport in NSW, according to NSW Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Andrew Constance. Salesforce has been working with Transport for NSW to help deliver improved customer services for 18 months, and Minister Constance addressed the Salesforce Government Speaker Series on Friday 4 November, just days after he unveiled the NSW Future Transport Technology Roadmap. The Roadmap brings the focus clearly to the customer – we're increasingly hearing and talking about the need for the public sector agencies to offer customer experiences on par with those of other businesses – and Minister Constance spoke of three key objectives: Developing and connecting real-time digital information, navigation, payment and engagement platforms so they are easier to understand and use, and can give personalised, individual service. Transforming mass-transit networks to improve efficiency and service frequency, and reduce transit times, making these services more attractive to our customers.

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