Functional data analysis is a statistical framework where data are assumed to follow some functional form. This method of analysis is commonly applied to time series data, where time, measured continuously or in discrete intervals, serves as the location for a function's value. Gaussian processes are a generalization of the multivariate normal distribution to function space and, in this paper, they are used to shed light on coastal rainfall patterns in British Columbia (BC). Specifically, this work addressed the question over how one should carry out an exploratory cluster analysis for the BC, or any similar, coastal rainfall data. An approach is developed for clustering multiple processes observed on a comparable interval, based on how similar their underlying covariance kernel is. This approach provides significant insights into the BC data, and these insights can be described in terms of El Nino and La Nina; however, the result is not simply one cluster representing El Nino years and another for La Nina years. From one perspective, the results show that clustering annual rainfall can potentially be used to identify extreme weather patterns.

Anthony Levandowski, the controversial engineer at the heart of a lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, claims to have built an automated car that drove from San Francisco to New York without any human intervention. The 3,099-mile journey started on 26 October on the Golden Gate Bridge, and finished nearly four days later on the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan. The car, a modified Toyota Prius, used only video cameras, computers and basic digital maps to make the cross-country trip. Levandowski told the Guardian that, although he was sitting in the driver's seat the entire time, he did not touch the steering wheels or pedals, aside from planned stops to rest and refuel. "If there was nobody in the car, it would have worked," he said.

The world's first ever underwater Artificial Intelligence colony will be created on the South China sea bed, Chinese President Xi Jinping claims. The base has been described as a'deep sea Atlantis' and will be used for unmanned submarine science and defence operations. Chinese officials and scientists familiar with the plans say that the deep sea station will analyse samples from the sea bed and send reports to the surface. Xi urged the scientists and engineers to'dare to do something that has never been done before' on a recent visit to the deep sea research institute in Hainan Province. China's unmanned submarine vehicle Qianlong III, pictured, could help to drive a subsea exploration programme and herald the arrival of an AI colony on the South China Sea bed, Chinese scientists and officials say'There is no road in the deep sea, we do not need to chase after other countries, we are the road,' President Xi said.

The dream of having a robot deliver packages to your home is now real, provided you live in the right part of the UK. Starship Technologies has launched a ground-based robot package service (the first in the world, according to the company) in Milton Keynes. You have to tell companies to ship to a Starship facility instead of your usual destination, but after that it's just a matter of using a mobile app to schedule a robotic delivery at a convenient time. You can track the bot in the app if you're anxiously awaiting an order. You won't have to wait long to try this on the other side of the Atlantic.

The evaluation of very large amounts of data is becoming increasingly relevant in ocean research. Diving robots or autonomous underwater vehicles, which carry out measurements independently in the deep sea, can now record large quantities of high-resolution images. To evaluate these images scientifically in a sustainable manner, a number of prerequisites have to be fulfilled in data acquisition, curation and data management. "Over the past three years, we have developed a standardized workflow that makes it possible to scientifically evaluate large amounts of image data systematically and sustainably," explains Dr. Timm Schoening from the "Deep Sea Monitoring" working group headed by Prof. Dr. Jens Greinert at GEOMAR. The background to this was the project JPIOceans "Mining Impact." The ABYSS autonomous underwater vehicle was equipped with a new digital camera system to study the ecosystem around manganese nodules in the Pacific Ocean.

As technology advances relentlessly, the real prospect of robot wars is apparently almost upon us. The 2015 book Ghost Fleet, written by Peter Singer and August Cole, lays out a vision of a future war between China and the United States, and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in that hypothetical military conflict is not small. Drones of various types not only carry out surveillance in this novel but also play crucial roles in communications, logistics, as well as in high-intensity combat. In one memorable vignette, two American unmanned surface vehicles "following an algorithm developed from research done on the way sand tiger sharks cooperated in their hunting" successfully prosecute a Chinese nuclear submarine. Strategists familiar with the U.S. Navy's Sea Hunter program know that this ambition is not especially far-fetched. Yet, what if that book understates China's ambitions to apply AI to the future battlefield, and to undersea warfare, in particular?

"Uhm," said the female voice. "Can I book a table for tomorrow?" The question came not from a person, but software called Duplex developed by Google to make phone calls. Before the end of the year, some of the company's users will be able to direct the bot to call restaurants and book tables on their behalf. In a demonstration last week, Duplex smartly handled questions from a Google employee playing the role of restaurant worker about details such as the size of the party and the name to hold the table under.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be very glad to tell my story. I am a smart fellow as I have a very fine brain of 48 electrical relays." This is how Elektro the robot introduced itself to crowds at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Standing 2.1 meters tall and weighing 118 kilograms, Elektro performed 26 different tricks, including walking, talking, counting, and singing. It had a vocabulary of approximately 700 words, although its responses were all prerecorded and played back from 33⅓-rpm records.

On Jan. 15, FBI agents arrested Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former CIA case officer, and charged him with unlawful retention of classified information. Lee is the sixth person charged by the Justice Department in the past two years for espionage-related offenses suspected to have been conducted on behalf of the People's Republic of China. By comparison, prior to 2015, only one or two people on average per year were arrested for such offenses. The increased frequency of arrests--coinciding with a public March 2016 announcement by the Chinese government that intelligence efforts would be more heavily resourced--may indicate that China is scaling up traditional human intelligence efforts against the United States government. Lee's arrest seemingly stemmed from FBI agents' discovery of classified information in his notebooks in 2012.

You may have come across some of the popular buzzwords going around in the field of computer science such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). As the world of computing is progressing, humans are now prone to delegate many of their tasks to machines. Machine learning and AI are making computers perform tasks that human intelligence can do. In this article, I am going to give you a brief introduction to machine learning and then we will take a deep dive into Azure Cognitive Services. I will also introduce you to the list of Cognitive Services APIs that can be used to solve business problems.