When I returned to university to do a graduate degree, I was interested to discover how certain terms are subject to "intellectual interpretation." A word that I was asked to explain during one of my earliest classes was "ontology." Since this term was absent from my dictionary, I originally confused it with "oncology." I faintly recall that oncology involves the study of tumors. After consulting a few sources, I said that ontology is the study of how things come to exist or into being. I came across another perspective although I don't recall the source: ontology is the study of how things gain relevance or become recognized, indicating that existence can be regarded as a matter of recognition. Perhaps there is no monopoly on the exact meaning. However, I would say of ontology in relation to data science, it explains how meaning is attached to data and therefore how that data gains and retains meaning. For example, if I were asked to count the number of trucks in a parking lot, it isn't obvious what should be included: small pick-ups, tow-trucks, commercial hauling vehicles, dump trucks, and maybe heavy construction trucks.

Artificial intelligence isn't likely to replace doctors, says a researcher, but it's likely their role will change as more artificial intelligence is developed. A study by Whangarei doctors William Diprose and Nicholas Buist has highlighted rapid progress of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in the health sector. They say a safe and sustainable healthcare system needs to look beyond human potential towards solutions such as AI. Q: Could artificial intelligence spell the end of doctors as we know them? Diprose and Buist are right to highlight the prospects of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

Artificial intelligence isn't likely to replace doctors, says a researcher, but it's likely their role will change as more artificial intelligence is developed. A study by Whangarei doctors William Diprose and Nicholas Buist has highlighted rapid progress of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in the health sector. They say a safe and sustainable healthcare system needs to look beyond human potential towards solutions such as AI. Q: Could artificial intelligence spell the end of doctors as we know them? Diprose and Buist are right to highlight the prospects of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

In a world of smart machines that can drive cars, beat humans at chess, advise on medical diagnoses and perform a host of other tasks, imagine the next likely step as a smart machine as a people manager. As business investment in smart machines grows, "robobosses" will increasingly make workplace decisions that previously could only have been made by human managers. By 2018, more than three million workers globally will be supervised by robobosses, according to Frances Karamouzis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. These smart machine managers will look at data derived from worker performance in new ways because of their ability to dispassionately discover previously undetected relationships and correlations, test their hypotheses, and then elevate them to production status. "Supervisor duties are increasingly shifting toward monitoring worker accomplishments through measurements of performance that are directly tied to output and customer evaluation," explained Ms. Karamouzis.

Use code WTBDBP16 to get 15% off the price of registration for 2 Day and Combo passes. Imaging, Vision and Learning based on Optimization and PDEs, August 29 – September 1, Bergen, Norway.

Driverless cars, drones and a proposed first commercial spaceport for the UK will feature in the Queen's speech. The Department for Transport has said such cutting-edge technologies are crucial to the country's economy and that its proposals, to be unveiled on Wednesday, will help deliver jobs. Legislation will be introduced to enable driverless cars, already trialled in the UK, to be insured under ordinary policies. The government has said that the spaceport will be constructed by the end of the current parliament. The self-driving car market is currently growing at 16% a year and could be worth up to 900bn worldwide by 2025, while the port is part of the government's plan to raise revenues in the space sector from 12bn to 40bn by 2030, which would mean capturing about 10% of the sector worldwide.

In one week from now, Google I/O 2016 will have come and gone, and we could very well be revelling in new services, features and if we're lucky, new products. Considering we are only a few days away, there have been very few leaks out of Mountain View, hopefully, that isn't a reflection on the quality of what Google has in store for us all. Our Editor in Chief Dan Tyson will be on the ground again this year, bringing us both hands on coverage as well as seeking out the Australian perspective on everything announced at I/O. No I/O would be complete without just a little speculation on what is coming, however, before we get to that it is important to remember that at its heart I/O is a developer conference, it is intended to let Google inform developers of how to utilise Google's service new and existing, and let developers get up close and personal with Googlers and their knowledge. Now let's get down to guessing speculating on what Google may have in store.

The weekend is upon us once again (woohoo!), and after another week packed with updates, announcements, rumors and insights, its arrival is certainly welcome. And as ever, 7 Days is here too, to walk you through what's been happening and bring you up to speed. We begin our odyssey this week in the UK, where the European Commission has blocked Three's proposed 10.25 billion acquisition of O2 UK, which would have created the country's largest mobile network operator. The EC determined that the deal would harm innovation, limit competition, and increase prices across the market. Cloud CRM platform Salesforce suffered an outage earlier this week affecting a relatively small proportion of its customers.

In the early 1990s, executives and managers welcomed information technology -- databases, PC workstations, and automated systems -- into their offices. They saw the potential for significant business gains. Computers wouldn't just speed up processes or automate certain tasks -- they could upset nearly all business processes and allow executives to rethink operations from the ground up. And so the reengineering movement was born. Powerful machine-learning algorithms that adapt through experience and evolve in intelligence with exposure to data are driving changes in businesses that would have been impossible to imagine just five years ago.

Today, Google introduces Parsey McParseface -- a free new tool, born from Google's research division to help computers better parse and understand English sentences. "We were having trouble thinking of a good name, and then someone said, 'We could just call it Parsey McParseface!' So… yup," says a Google spokesperson. Parsey McParseface is a piece of a larger framework called SyntaxNet, itself a big part of Google's popular home-built TensorFlow software for building artificial intelligence, as explained in a blog entry. With this release, any developer anywhere can download, use, and even start to improve Google's tools in their own software. One of the biggest problems in artificial intelligence, today, is that speech recognition by computers may be better than ever, but they still have trouble understanding exactly what we mean. After all, language is complicated: Consider that "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo" is a 100% gramatically correct sentence in American English.